RTFA: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3172

According to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data, 37 million Americans�one in eight�lived below the federal poverty line in 2005, defined as an annual income of $19,971 for a family of four. Yet poverty touches a far greater share of the population over the course of their lives: A 1997 study by University of Michigan economist Rebecca Blank found that one-third of all U.S. residents will experience government-defined poverty within a 13-year period. The poorest age group is children, with more than one in six living in official poverty at any given time.

Moreover, the poverty line itself, which hasn’t been changed in almost four decades except to account for inflation, has been widely criticized as an antiquated measure of actual levels of need. Mark Greenberg, director of the Task Force on Poverty at the Center for American Progress, wrote in the American Prospect in April 2007:

Studies of a minimally decent standard of living routinely find that the typical cost is twice as high as the poverty line or higher. Ninety million Americans�nearly one-third of the nation�have household incomes below twice the poverty line, a figure far larger than the official number of 37 million in poverty.

Wage slavery. The working poor. The wealthiest nation on the planet.