Our path to third world nation status continues:

The number of Americans living in poverty reached a record 49.1 million in 2010, according to a new broader measure of poverty released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Monday.

That figure contrasts with an official poverty measure released in September that said there were 46.2 million poor people in the United States.

The new measure is designed to provide a fuller picture of poverty by including the government benefits poor people receive and the expenses they pay. The official benchmark focuses more narrowly on cash wages.

That’s almost 1 in 5 Americans and there seems to be no end in site with this from Pew Research:

Older adults have made dramatic gains relative to younger adults in their economic well being during the past quarter century, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of data from two key U.S. Census sources.

Trends in household wealth reveal the pattern most vividly. In 2009, the median net worth (all assets minus all debts) of households headed by an adult ages 65 or older was 42% more than that of their same-aged counterparts in 1984. By contrast, the net worth of a typical household headed by an adult under the age of 35 in 2009 was 68% less than that of their same-aged counterparts in 1984.

Now I’m sure a lot of that has to do with things like 401k, but it also shows just how volatile the wealth of Americans really is. With Europe on the verge of economic collapse, the stock market is certain to take another serious hit. That means the wealth of our older Americans is also in serious jeopardy. Let this next economic disaster happen and we will see an even bigger increase in that poverty number.