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Poverty Continues to Rise in U.S., Now 15.1%
The number of people in the U.S. living in poverty in 2010 rose for the fourth year in a row, representing the largest number of Americans in poverty in the 52 years.
By CBS NEWS


(CBS News) Last Updated 11:00 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON — The number of people in the U.S. living in poverty in 2010 rose for the fourth year in a row, representing the largest number of Americans in poverty in the 52 years since such estimates have been published by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Median household income in the U.S. also declined.

According to a report issued Tuesday, 46.2 million Americans were living in poverty in 2010, up from 43.6 million in 2009. Data in the Census Bureau covers the first full calendar year following the December 2007-June 2009 recession.

The nation's official poverty rate increased for the third year in a row - 15.1 percent in 2010, up from 14.3 percent in 2009.

Real median household income in the United States also fell in 2010, to $49,445 (a 2.3 percent drop from 2009).

The number of people without health insurance coverage rose by nearly a million (from 49.0 million in 2009 to 49.9 million in 2010). However, the percentage rate of those without coverage (16.3 percent) was not statistically different from the 2009 rate.

Among the other findings:

Households in the Midwest, South and West experienced declines in real median income between 2009 and 2010, while median household income in the Northeast was not statistically significant.
In 2010, the number of families living in poverty was 9.2 million, up from 8.8 million in 2009. The family poverty rate also increased, from 11.1 percent in 2009 to 11.7 percent.

There were also increases in the poverty rate / the number in poverty for both married-couple families (6.2 percent / 3.6 million in 2010, up from 5.8 percent / 3.4 million in 2009), and for female-householder-with-no-husband-present families (31.6 percent / 4.7 million in 2010, up from 29.9 percent / 4.4 million in 2009).

Since 2007 - when the '07-'09 recession began - the poverty rate has increased by 2.6 percentage points. Although the 2010 rate is 7.3 percentage points lower than in 1959 when the rate was first estimated, it is its highest since 1993.

The change in income inequality between 2009 and 2010 was not statistically significant, although shares of aggregate household income by quintiles showed a slight shift to increased inequality.
Women's earnings for full-time, year-round work in 2010 were 77 percent that for men - not statistically different from the 2009 ratio.