WASHINGTON (Web Desk) – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned the United States government about the masses of people staying out of the workforce or living in poverty on its territory.
According to RT, while the IMF praised the US for creating 2.4 million jobs over the last year and reducing the unemployment rate to 4.7 percent, the lowest level since the global crisis of 2008-2009, the financial body also warned the country about “falling labor force participation, an increasingly polarized income distribution, high levels of poverty, and weak productivity.”
To improve things, the Fund has recommended that Washington “increase state and federal infrastructure investment, adopt comprehensive skills-based immigration reform, expand the Earned Income Tax Credit combined with an increase in the federal minimum wage, and upgrade social programs for the nonworking poor.”
IMF cited US census data showing that 46.7 million people or 15 percent of Americans are now living below the poverty line, including 1 in 3 households headed by women.
The report also revised the US growth forecast for 2016 to 2.2 percent from 2.4 percent previously, but kept its growth outlook for the country at 2.5 percent in 2017.
