In "Our Sputtering Economy by Numbers: Poverty Edition," ProPublica highlights statistics derived from the Census Bureau's lncome, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010, which lend further weight to the notion that what we've experienced since the recession "ended" back in 2009 could best be described as an "unrecovery." Here are just a few examples

Poverty:

Official U.S. poverty rate in 2007, before the recession: 12.5 percent

Poverty rate in 2009: 14.3 percent

Poverty rate in 2010: 15.1 percent

Last time the poverty level was this high: 1993

Income:

Decline in median household income since 2009: 2.3 percent

Decline in median household income since before the recession: 6.4 percent

The last time median household incomes have been this low: 1996

In both cases, the statistics that are supposed to improve when a recession ends have actually gotten worse. Maybe I'm a little slow on the uptake, but isn't this the wrong way around?

Regardless, the fact that Americans are in worse shape financially than they were before financial Armageddon erupted suggests the economy's next leg down is going to be an ugly one.

Michael J. Panzner