1 in 7 in U.S. below poverty line

The percentage of Americans struggling below the poverty line in 2009 was the highest it has been in 15 years, the Census Bureau reported Thursday, and interviews with poverty experts and aid groups said the increase appeared to be continuing this year.

With the country in its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, four million additional Americans found themselves in poverty in 2009, with the total reaching 44 million, or one in seven residents. Millions more were surviving only because of expanded unemployment insurance and other assistance.

The share of residents in poverty climbed to 14.3 percent in 2009, the highest level recorded since 1994. The rise was steepest for children, with one in five affected, the bureau said.

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Thousands more Hawaii residents fell into poverty last year, driving up the rate here to its highest level since 1997, Census Bureau figures released yesterday show.

The poverty rate in Hawaii rose to 12.5 percent in 2009 -- with more than 156,000 people living below the poverty line -- the third consecutive year the state saw growing numbers of impoverished people.

In 2007, 7.5 percent of the state's population was below the poverty line. In 2008, the number rose to 9.9 percent -- or 125,000 people.

The new census estimates show the poverty rate among Hawaii children jumped nearly 5 percentage points last year -- to 19 percent -- up from 14.3 percent.

The figures, advocates say, illustrate just how much island low-income families are struggling in an economic downturn that has left thousands without jobs and many struggling to pay for necessities.

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Worldwide, the poor are getting less poor, although not everywhere.

The share of the population of developing regions whose people live in extreme poverty is expected to fall to 15 percent by 2015, down from 46 percent in 1990, according to the United Nations. The gains stem largely from robust economic growth in countries such as China and India, the world's two most populous countries.

In China, whose economy this year officially surpassed Japan's as the world's second largest, the number living below the international poverty line fell from 60.2 percent in 1990 to 15.9 percent in 2005. By 2015, it is forecast to be 5 percent.

By a U.N. measure of living on less than $1.25 a day, some 254 million Chinese remain in extreme poverty. The Chinese government uses a poverty line of $190 in annual income, or about 52 cents a day, and 40 million Chinese fall below that. Those bedrock poor are mostly farmers and nomads, mainly from minority ethnic groups in remote areas.