Sep 13 2011
Huffington Post: U.S. Poverty Rate Hits Highest Level Since 1993
WASHINGTON — Even though the Great Recession technically ended in 2009, incomes fell, poverty rose and the number of Americans without health insurance jumped again in 2010, the federal government announced Tuesday.
The nation’s poverty rate increased to 15.1 percent in 2010, up from 14.3 percent in 2009 and the highest level since 1993, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage report for 2010. An additional 2.6 million people landed in poverty last year, bringing the total to 46.2 million — the highest number since the government started tracking poverty in the 1950s.
“Income down, poverty up, health insurance coverage down or flat,” said Ron Haskins, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, in a statement. “The news on economic well-being in the U.S. is not good. Worse, children’s poverty increased for the fourth year in a row and at 22 percent is the highest since 1993. Child poverty has been higher than the 2010 level in only three years since the mid-1960s.”
Poverty is defined by family size and income. The federal government considers a family of four with annual earnings of less than $22,314 to be poor. In 2010, 9.2 million families lived in poverty, up from 8.8 million in 2009.
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One Response to “Huffington Post: U.S. Poverty Rate Hits Highest Level Since 1993”
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