Changes in the U.S. economy over the past several decades no longer impacts mostly minorities, but whites as well, according to the Associated Press.

Whites increasingly make up what experts call the “invisible poor” residing in suburbs or small towns, especially in Appalachia, the industrial Midwest and in the Great Plains.

More than 19 million whites fall below the poverty line of $23,021 for a family of four, comprising more than 41% of the nation’s poor, which is nearly double the number of poor blacks.

The AP also found that economic insecurity will visit 76% of white adults by the time they reach 60 years of age. “Economic insecurity” is defined as being unemployed at some point in their working lives, or spending a year or more of reliance on government aid such as food stamps, or having their income below 150% of the poverty line.

Overall, four out of five U.S. adults will struggle with joblessness, near poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives—products of growing income inequality and the outsourcing of American jobs, particularly in the manufacturing sector, since the 1970s.

According to the AP study, “For the first time since 1975, the number of white single-mother households who were living in poverty with children surpassed or equaled black ones in the past decade, spurred by job losses and faster rates of out-of-wedlock births among whites.”

-Noel Brinkerhoff

To Learn More:

Signs of Declining Economic Security (by Hope Yen, Associated Press)

Economy Recovers for Richest 1%; Income Flat for the other 99% (by Matt Bewig, AllGov)

U.S. Leads Developed World…in Income Inequality (by Noel Brinkerhoff and David Wallechinsky, AllGov)