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Group: HIV/AIDS among Top 10 crises of the year
NEW YORK
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Putin promises an end to elderly poverty |
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MOSCOW, Nov. 25 (UPI) -- Prime Minister Vladimir Putin promised increases in pensions Wednesday large enough to lift all Russian retirees out of poverty.
Putin, speaking at the opening of the All-Russia Pension Forum, said beginning in January the minimum will be 8,000 rubles ($278) a month, ITAR-TASS reported.
"Poverty among pensioners will be fully eliminated," Putin said. "Pensioners whose overall income is lower than the minimum subsistence level will be entitled to a social benefit."
About 5.7 million elderly are in that bind, he said, most of them living in areas with a high cost of living, including Siberia, northern Russia and the Far East.
Putin acknowledged pensions were to have been increased in 2008.
"It was bad luck that the world crisis broke out then. It was not our fault. We could not do anything about it," he said.
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North Carolina Poverty Rates Staggering |
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The North Carolina Justice Center has released statistics on the number of people in poverty in our state, and the results are staggering. The data show 18 counties in North Carolina have poverty levels above 20 percent. Nine of those counties are in Eastern Carolina.
Here's a list of those counties in Eastern Carolina with a poverty level above 20 percent:
Lenoir: 25.7%
Martin: 24.6%
Hertford: 24.6%
Halifax: 23.8%
Edgecombe: 22.9%
Wilson:22.7%
Northampton: 22.4%
Pitt: 22.2%
Duplin: 21.5%
The overall state poverty rate is 14.6 percent.
These statistics, for the year 2008, could be considered conservative, since unemployment rates are higher now than they were last year.
Latinos make up the largest ethnic group living in poverty at 28.2 percent, which is a rate three times as high as whites. The share of African Americans living in poverty in North Carolina is 24.3 percent.
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Poverty up, new census figs show |
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New Census Bureau data indicates the poverty rate in Calaveras County went up from 2007 to 2008, but remained flat in Tuolumne County.
The real measure of poverty, some say, cannot be accurately depicted by government estimates, but by the amount of assistance provided by community and social service agencies.
The U.S. Census Bureau reports nationwide in 2008, 13.2 percent of people are living in poverty and in California, 13.3 percent were living in poverty.
The bureau sets the poverty income threshold at $21,834 for a household of two adults and two children. The poverty threshold for people living alone over the age of 65 is $13,030.
The poverty rate in Calaveras County increased from 10.3 percent in 2007 to 11.5 percent in 2008, Census data said.
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