US Poverty Rate Highest Since 1993

16 September 2011

A man stand outside a small store in Camden, New Jersey, which has the highest poverty rate in the nation.

This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.

A new report says the poverty rate in the United States last year was the highest since nineteen ninety-three. The official rate was 15.1 percent, up from 14.3 percent in two thousand nine.

Poverty meant yearly income, or earnings, of less than twenty-two thousand three hundred dollars for a family of four.

The American recession lasted from December of two thousand seven to June of two thousand nine. Since two thousand seven, the poverty rate has risen more than two and a half percentage points.

The new findings did come as a surprise to Michael Ferrell of the Coalition for the Homeless in Washington, DC.

MICHAEL FERRELL: "Unless there's a turnaround within the economy in the very near future, it's most likely to get worse."

The Census Bureau says median household income fell more than two percent from two thousand nine to two thousand ten. Median means half earned more and half earned less. Last year, the median income was about forty-nine thousand dollars. The Census Bureau says more than forty-six million people were living in poverty. It was the largest number since estimates began in nineteen fifty-nine. They included more than one-fourth of blacks and Hispanics, twelve percent of Asians and about ten percent of non-Hispanic whites.