That's because the data is inherently flawed. The poverty line this year is $15,650 for an individual. That's not poverty, that's destitution. From personal experience, living in WV, you cannot survive on that amount of money without either sleeping under a bridge/in a car or dumpster-diving/shoplifting all of your meals.
Folks say just get on food stamps or medicaid, but it's not that simple. At that level of destitution you may not have a phone, an address, basic ID/documentation, or even a means of getting to the office to apply. Means-testing makes the process so drawn-out and convoluted, that many folks (including myself) don't even bother, because there are more immediate things to worry about (once again speaking from experience).
After years of destitution, I finally managed to make a bit more than twice the FPL and I was still struggling (but significantly better off). Just recently I lost that job for reasons outside my control and after my unemployment runs out I'm back where I started. Everyone I know has a similar story. Any data that says that poverty is decreasing in the US is detached from reality.
Folks say just get on food stamps or medicaid, but it's not that simple. At that level of destitution you may not have a phone, an address, basic ID/documentation, or even a means of getting to the office to apply. Means-testing makes the process so drawn-out and convoluted, that many folks (including myself) don't even bother, because there are more immediate things to worry about (once again speaking from experience).
After years of destitution, I finally managed to make a bit more than twice the FPL and I was still struggling (but significantly better off). Just recently I lost that job for reasons outside my control and after my unemployment runs out I'm back where I started. Everyone I know has a similar story. Any data that says that poverty is decreasing in the US is detached from reality.