Solving the mystery of poverty in the United States

Published: 2004-01-23

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The U.S. poverty level is a mystery to many of us. In a recent poll, most Americans said they thought that the poor would still be poor if they had an income that was twice as much as the official U.S. poverty level income of $18,400 for a family of four. Others think that if noncash benefits to the poor were included in the government's measurements of the poverty level the number of poor Americans would plummet. And low-income people themselves -- those living below or slightly above the official poverty line -- have much lower expectations than the general population of how much they would need to pull themselves out of poverty. None of this comes as any surprise to Father Robert J. Vitillo, a priest of the Diocese of Paterson, N.J., who heads the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the U.S. bishops' domestic anti-poverty program. For the past four years CCHD has been working to raise consciousness about the plight of the poor through its "Poverty USA" public service advertising campaign, launched each year during National Poverty Awareness Month in January.

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