Poverty in the United States

In 2005, the overall percentage of the U.S. population living in poverty was 12.6%, up from 11.3% in 2000. The poverty rate increased for people 65 years old and older from 2004 to 2005, but slightly went down for other ages. The number of people below the official poverty level was 36.9 million in 1992. That is 14.5% of the nation's population. The Northeast and the Midwest had the lowest poverty rate. The poverty rate is higher in large cities. In 2005, the poverty rate for families decreased to 9.9% from 10.2% in 2004, while the number of families in poverty remained pretty much the same at 7.7 million in 2005. For married-couple families, both the poverty rate and the number in poverty decreased to 5.1% and 2.9 million in 2005, down from 5.5% and 3.2 million in 2004. The poverty rate and the number in poverty showed no change between 2004 and 2005 for female-householder-with-no-husband present families (28.7% and 4.0 million) and for male-householder-with-no-wife-present families (13.0% and 669,000).

$35,000 -- basic-needs budget for a U.S. family of four (two adults, two children)

$19,157 -- poverty line for a family of four (two adults, two children) in the U.S. in 2004

12.7 -- percentage of U.S. citizens living below the

poverty line in 2004 (37 million people)

8.6 -- percentage of non-Hispanic Caucasians living

below the poverty level in 2004

9.8 -- percentage of Asians living below the poverty level in 2004

21.9 -- percentage of Hispanics living below the poverty level in 2004

24.3 -- percentage of Native Americans living below the poverty level in 2004

24.7 -- percentage of African Americans living below the poverty level in 2004

$84,044 -- average per capita personal income in New York County, N.Y., the most affluent county in the nation, in 2003

$10,805 -- average per capita personal income in Starr County, Texas, the least affluent county in the nation, in 2003

$11,354