Statistics

Source:  U.S. Census Bureau

• In the United States in 2006, the poverty rate for all individuals was 12.3%.  For children under the age of 18, the poverty rate was 17.4% and for children under the age of 5, the rate was 20.4%. 

• In 2006, children under 5 living in families with a female householder and no husband present experienced a poverty rate of 53.7% more than five times the rate for children in married-couple families, 9.6%.

• The United States' child poverty rate is substantially higher -- often two or three times higher -- than that of most other major Western industrialized nations.

• The poverty rate in 2009 was the highest since 1994, but was 8.1 percentage points lower than the poverty rate in 1959, the first year for which poverty estimates are available. The number of people in poverty in 2009 is the largest number in the 51 years for which poverty estimates are available. 

• The poverty rate has increased for children younger than 18 from 19.0 percent in 2008 to 20.7 percent in 2009.