Wealth and Poverty in US -Internet Research [not finished]

1) Has poverty changed over time?
- After doing some research i learned that yes the poverty rate in the US has changed over the years. It states that in the 1950's the poverty rate was at 22% which represents about 40 billion poor people ! This was when the poverty rate was at its peek because after that the rates decreased to 15% and below. When it started to decrease a lot , it was around the time of 1959-1969 , thats when it became 12% . over the years the rate increased and decreases due to economic difficulties as we moved into recession. Over all the latest rate that this site shows is 2007 and it was 37.3 million people were poor. Which is 12.5% . Looking at this rate you can see how the rate changed from the 1950's to 2007!
[http://www.irp.wisc.edu/faqs/faq3.htm#change]

2) Follow up question: Why was the rate so high in the 1950's?
- the rate in the US was so high in the 1950's because it was right after the great depression. the rates were actually the highest around the 1940's and 1930's because that was during the great depression. at that time the rates reached a peak of 40%! almost half of America! The reason for the "Great Depression" was because there was a sudden crash in the stock market and the country became poor. This all relates to today i feel like because our stock market is crashing and people are spending money in the wrong places, we might be reaching that peak in the poverty rates soon :(
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression]

3) How many children under 18 in the US in poverty ?
- i found this website that tells me how many children are in poverty but its for the year 2007