A recent study by the Heartland Alliance Mid-America Institute on Poverty found that over 400,000 additional Illinois residents were pushed into poverty since the economic crisis began—an increase of 27 percent since 2007. Over 130,000 of the newly impoverished are children.
Poverty under capitalism is nothing new. Three and a half million Illinois residents, nearly 30 percent of the population, were living within 200 percent of the federal poverty line before the economic crisis began. Over 667,000 people were in “extreme poverty,” earning below $11,000 annually for a family of four. By February 2009, there was only one job for every five job seekers in the Midwest.
Capitalism has impoverished tens of millions of people nationwide, particularly in oppressed communities. A third of children of undocumented immigrant families are living in poverty, nearly double the rate for children of U.S.-born parents. In total, over 5.1 million people lost their jobs since December 2007, and over 6 million people are collecting unemployment insurance.
