Did you know?*

• The official poverty rate in 2009 was 14.3% - up from 13.2% in 2008.  This was the second statistically significant annual increase in the poverty rate since 2004.
• In 2009, 43.6 million people were in poverty, up from 39.8 million in 2008 - the third consecutive annual increase in the number of people in poverty.
• Between 2008 and 2009, the poverty rate increasedfor non-Hispanic Whites (from 8.6% to 9.4%), for Blacks (from 24.7% to 25.8%), and for Hispanics (from 23.2% to 25.3%).  For Asians, the 2009 poverty rate (12.5%) was not statistically different from the 2008 poverty rate.
• The poverty rate in 2009 (14.3%) was the highest poverty rate since 1994 but was 8.1 percentage points lower than the poverty rate in 1959, the first year for which poverty estimates are available.
• The number of people in poverty in 2009 (43.6 million) is the largest number in the 51 years for which poverty estimates have been published.
• Between 2008 and 2009, the poverty rate increased for children under the age of 18 (from 19.0% to 20.7%) and people aged 18 to 64 (from 11.7% to 12.9%), but decreased for people aged 65 and older (from 9.7% to 8.9%).

*Information taken from the U.S. Census Bureau website

Poverty and Hunger in New Hampshire*

*Information taken from the U.S. Census Bureau website