U.S. Poverty Rate Finally Fell
There's not much good news for working Americans struggling to rebound from the recession, except perhaps this: the U.S. poverty rate is finally on the decline.
The nation's poverty rate fell to 14.5% in 2013, down from 15% a year earlier, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Tuesday. This is the first statistically significant drop in poverty since 2006, when it was 12.3%.
A lot of the decrease is coming from people finding full-time work—and thus earning more money. But the number of people in poverty remains stuck at 45.3 million. As America's population expands, the job growth hasn't kept pace.