Here are a couple of resources that may help -- we'll keep looking for more.

The Applied Research Center has a fact sheet (based on 2006 Census data) called "Census Data Shows New York Mirrors National Trends of Inequity" that focuses on New York. While this data of course doesn't reflect recent trends, it could be useful for your presentation to show how tenuous some Americans' existence already is, even in better times:

"Across the Nation, families of color earn less income, have higher poverty rates and attain college degrees at lower rates as compared to white people. New York mirrors these national trends. Across the Nation, families of color earn less income, have higher poverty rates and attain college degrees at lower rates as compared to white people. New York mirrors these national trends. Here, we look at individual racial groups to see how they fare in New York when it comes to rates and disparities in poverty, educational attainment, and family income."

There's also -- speaking of NY -- the Unheard Third report about New Yorkers, conducted in June and July 2008 by the Community Service Society (CSS). See especially the section called "Making Ends Meet" and following.

The president and CEO of CSS has also published some relevant articles based on this research in the New York Amsterdam News, a Black-owned weekly newspaper; for example, A Not So Merry New York Christmas Story (by David R. Jones; 12/25/08).

[excerpt]

"As we reflect over the last few months of 2008, we faced some of the toughest economic times in decades. The unemployment rate in both the city and the state has spiked to over six percent. But this is not the entire story. The numbers of jobless New Yorkers, those who have given up looking for employment, are not counted in the government's unemployment statistics. For instance, research by the Community Service Society has shown that among black men in New York City the jobless rate is often five to six times the published unemployment rate.

"Nationally, employers eliminated nearly two million jobs this year. Older workers who were laid off have been moving into lower paying jobs that would normally go to young people starting out in the labor market. The result is more 'disconnected youth,' those ages 16 to 24 who are neither in school nor working.

"The loss of jobs means the loss of health care coverage for most families. Many of those who have managed to stay employed have suffered cut backs of employee benefits and decreases in contributions to pensions and 401K's. The city's food pantries and soup kitchens are being overwhelmed. Food stamps are a virtual life saver for 1.3 million New Yorkers."

(I searched in EBSCO's Academic Search Premier for "economic crisis" and "low-income" to pull up that one.)