For low-income famililies in the United States, 2006 proved to be a much better year as the poverty rate dropped from 12.6 percent to 12.3 percent. The median household income also grew during that same period, reaching $48,200.
The US Census Bureau report says the major reason for the drop is more people are now working, specifically single mothers.
A lot of this has been the result of the welfare reform of the 1990s and the expansion of the earned-income tax credit.
Others cite that even these numbers could be lower because the Census Bureau measures those that have no income, which doesn't mean they're pour. Examples of people between jobs and those that are inclined to take time off various times during their working years.
It seems what we think of when we think of "poor" has changed over the years also.
Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, says surveys he's done on what is defined as "poor" by the government, found of the 36 million Americans defined as poor, about 75 percent own their own cars, 97 percent own color TV and 89 percent own microwaves.
"Most people, when they hear the word poverty, think of malnutrition and food shortages. Certainly they're not thinking about households that have cable television, microwaves, and air conditioning, which most poor households have," he says.
Median income is close to 30 percent higher than it was in the late 1960s the Census Bureau report concluded.
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