[Al Jazeera] The US poverty rate hit its highest level since 1993 last year, with a record 46 million people living below the American poverty line, according to census data.A government report released on Tuesday said the poverty rate rose for a third consecutive year to hit 15.1
per cent in 2010, up from 14.3 per cent a year earlier.
The US definition of poverty in 2010 was an annual income of $22,314 for a family of four, and $11,139 for a single person.
The survey showed struggles for the rest of Americans, with median annual household income falling 2.3 percent to $49,445.
However,
facts are stubborn; statistics are more pliable...
the census report said there was no "statistically significant" change in inequality between 2009 and 2010 based on its index.
The poverty rate for blacks and Hispanics was much higher than for the overall population at 27.4 per cent and 26.6 per cent, respectively. Among regions, the South had the highest poverty rate at 16.9 per cent and the highest percentage without health insurance, 19.1 per cent.
The Census Bureau said the number of people country-wide without health insurance coverage rose to 49.9 million in 2010 from 49.0 million in 2009.
The report, showing the first full year since the recession officially ended in June 2009, supports the notion that Americans have been losing ground economically. It showed real median incomes fell 6.4 per cent from pre-recession levels in 2007 and were 7.1 per cent below the peak in 1999.
Underlying the census data was a rate of economic growth too weak to compensate for the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs from 2009 to 2010, as the recession officially ended but the jobless rate shot up from 9.3 per cent to 9.6 per cent.