Poverty and Justice in America

Poverty

• 47.4 million Americans - nearly 1 in 6- lived in poverty in 2008. (National Academy of Science, Associated Press, 2009)
• 3.5 million Americans are likely to experience homelessness in a given year. (National Coalition for the Homeless, 2009)
• 40 percent of homeless men are veterans.  On any given night, 200,000 veterans are homeless. (Now on PBS, 2009)
• 13.3 million children under the age of 18, or 17.9 percent, are currently living below the poverty line. (National Academy of Science, Associated Press, 2009)
• About 18.7 percent of Americans 65 and older, or nearly 7.1 million, are living in poverty. (National Academy of Science, Associated Press, 2009)
• Nearly half of all U.S. children will be on food stamps at some point during childhood. (Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, USAToday.com, 2009)
• 3.5 million children under the age of 5 are at risk of hunger in the United States. (Feeding America, CBS News, 2009)
• The United States throws away nearly 30 million tons of food every year, approximately a third of all food purchased. (Environmental Protection Agency, The New York Times, 2008)
• Recovering just 5 percent of the food wasted in America could feed 4 million people a day, recovering 25 percent would feed 20 million a day. (Department of Agriculture, The New York Times, 2008)

Justice

• An estimated 17,500 foreign nationals are trafficked into the U.S. each year. (Polaris Project, 2009)
• 63 percent of sex trafficking victims in the United States were U.S. citizens. (U.S. Dept of Justice, 2007)
• Slaves in the U.S. come from 60 countries and have been found in 90 American cities. (FreetheSlaves.net)
• An estimated 200,000 American children are at high risk for trafficking into the sex industry each year. (Polaris Project, 2009)

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