Nearly 36 Million Americans Live in Poverty: "Some 1.3 million Americans slid into poverty in 2003 as the ranks of the poor rose 4 percent to 35.9 million, with children and blacks worse off than most, the government said on Thursday in a report that fueled Democratic criticism of President Bush.
Despite the economic recovery, the percentage of the U.S. population living in poverty rose for the third straight year to 12.5 percent -- the highest since 1998 -- from 12.1 percent in 2002, the Census Bureau (news - web sites) said in its annual poverty report. The widely cited score card on the nation's economy showed one-third of those in poverty were children.
The number of U.S. residents without health-care coverage rose 1.4 million to 45 million last year, while incomes were essentially stagnant, the Census Bureau said. "
- posted by geoff @ #