BY ANNA GARCIA

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Working families that are within poverty level continued to increase in 2012.

According to the NY Times, statistics show that median household income levels are as low as they were in 1996 and that despite inflation costs, average income levels are dropping.

In the last decade, people living in poverty has declined in Newark and New York, while the number of poor has grown by nearly 180,000 in surrounding communities of northern New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania and parts of New York state, according to NJ.com.

The growing number of working class poor families has affected the New Jersey home-front especially hard.

Yahoo released statistics from The U.S. Census Bureau reporting that the past four years has seen an increase in poverty levels indicating that 988,000 citizens of the state of New Jersey - approximately 11.4 percent - were living below the poverty level in 2011. This percentage shows a general trend of increasing poverty levels, growing from 8.8 percent in 2006 to 10.7 percent in 2011.

The golden question would inquire that if people are working, then how can the poverty line be increasing?

Well, even though people are returning to work, the jobs that they are returning to aren’t making ends meet. Many people are accepting service jobs that are typically lower-paid, part-time and do not offer employee benefits.