U. S. Census offers a poor profile of American wealth In September 1998, the Census Bureau provided a snapshot of the economic health of America as of 1996. It indicates a widening income gap between the richest and poorest Americans, largely stagnating household incomes and a million more people without health insurance. More stats Capital punishment Environment Homelessness Welfare reform Our booming prisons Disappearing health care Refugees worldwide Misc. That meant there were 36.5 million poor people, up 4.1 million from 1989 when recession hit and started the downward income trends. 1996's national poverty rate was 13.7 percent.
Children remain disproportionately represented among the poor.
They make up 40 percent of that population but only 27 percent of the overall population. The ranks of the very poor, defined as households with incomes less than half of the poverty line. But the poverty rate for African Americans fell to 28.4 percent from 29.3 percent in 1995. The average earnings for the top 20 percent of American income earners rose 2.2 percent in 1996, while average income of families in the bottom 20 percent fell by 1.8 percent. U.S. household incomes still have not made up what they lost from the 1989 recession.