Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Aug. 2005 supplement to the Current Population Survey (CPS). Web: www.census.gov.
Poverty
The poverty rate in 2005 was 12.6%, not statistically different from 2004. Some 37.0 million people were poor in 2005— about the same as in 2004. After 4 years of consecutive increases, the poverty rate stabilized in 2005— higher than the most recent low of 11.3% in 2000 and lower than the rate in 1959 (22.4%), the first year for which poverty estimates are available.
The poverty rate in 2005 for children under 18 (17.6%) remained higher than that of 18-to-64-year-olds (11.1%) and that of people 65 and older (10.1%)—all were not statistically different from 2004. In 2005, the number in poverty remained statistically unchanged from 2004 for people under 18 and people 18 to 64 years old (12.9 million and 20.5 million, respectively). The number in poverty increased for seniors 65 and older—3.6 million in 2005, up from 3.5 million in 2004.
Both the poverty rate and the number in poverty for non-Hispanic whites decreased—8.3% and 16.2 million in 2005, down from 8.7% and 16.9 million in 2004. Poverty rates remained statistically unchanged for blacks (24.9%) and Hispanics (21.8%) between 2004 and 2005. Among Asians, 11.1% were in poverty in 2005, higher than the 9.8% in 2004. The number of Asians in poverty also increased—to 1.4 million in 2005 from 1.2 million in 2004.
In 2005, the poverty rate for families decreased to 9.9% from 10.2% in 2004, while the number of families in poverty remained statistically unchanged 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 statistical difference 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).
In 2005, the poverty rates for the Northeast (11.3%) and the Midwest (11.4%) were not statistically different from each other, but were lower than the rates for the South (14.0%) and the West (12.6%). None of the regions showed any statistical change in either their poverty rate or the number in poverty from 2004 to 2005.
