Poor us

The U.S. Census Bureau just released the latest numbers for poverty, and for the second year in a row there was a significant increase in the number of Americans living at or below the poverty level. The 2009 Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States findings show the poverty rate jumping more than one percent from 2008 to 2009—from 13.2 to 14.3—leaving 43.6 million Americans living in poverty. And from 2007 to 2008 the rate rose from 12.5 to 13.2. The rate didn’t jump as much in California from 2008-2009 as it had the previous year, but at 15.3 percent, the state’s rate is still one percent higher than the national average.