Christian aid organizations are calling on the federal government to make fighting poverty a national priority, in response to new economic data from the Census Bureau.
According to the bureau's report, released Tuesday, the percentage of Americans living below the poverty level remained statistically unchanged from 2006 to 2007. During that same 12-month period the median income increased and the number of Americans without health insurance declined.
The data does not take into account the nation's recent economic downturn.
The Rev. Larry Snyder, the president of Catholic Charities USA, called the current poverty level "unacceptable." "Let these troubling poverty statistics be a call to action for each of us," he said.
The Rev. David Beckmann, the president of the Christian antipoverty organization Bread for the World, said the report fails to account for rising transportation and health-care expenses. "The current way we measure poverty ... fails to capture the true extent of the hardship experienced by American families," he said.
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