Current US Poverty Statistics. Income i. ï· The federal poverty line is $11,892 for individuals and $23,836 for a family of four. ï· The official poverty rate is 14.5%, meaning 45.3 million people in the US live in poverty, up by over 8 million since. 2008. An additional 97.3 million (33%) of people living in the United States are low-income, defined as incomes. below twice the federal poverty line, or $47,700 for a family of four.
Mesopotamia, the area between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in present-day Iraq, is often considered the cradle of civilization. It was here that civilization, characterized by cities, monumental architecture, and writing, began to develop about 7,000 years ago.
The Ziggurat. At the center of each major city in Mesopotamia was a large structure called a ziggurat. The ziggurat was built to honor the main god of the city. The tradition of building a ziggurat was started by the Sumerians, but other civilizations of Mesopotamia such as the Akkadians, the Babylonians, and the Assyrians also built ziggurats. The Ziggurat of the city of Ur. based on a 1939 drawing by Leonard Woolley.