Wednesday, Sep 14 2011 1:22PM
The median household income dipped in 2010 compared to the year before, new Census data indicates.
According to recent data released by the Census Bureau, the median household income for U.S. residents decreased in 2010, while the country's poverty rate grew.
The poverty rate increased from 14.3 percent in 2009 to 15.1 percent last year, the agency reported. This marks the third consecutive year in which poverty levels have jumped. Additionally, the rate is the highest since 1993.
Also, the median household income during 2010 was $49,445 — more than 2 percent lower than the MHI from the year before. In the West, income levels dipped nearly 3 percent.
"Without the infrastructure investments and various other provisions of the Recovery Act of 2009, unemployment would have been higher and incomes lower in 2010 than these figures show," Shawn Fremstad, Inclusive and Sustainable Economy Initiative director at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said in a statement following the Census Bureau's release.
Catherine V. Beane, Policy Director for the Children's Defense Fund, told the Washington Post 1 million more children were in poverty last year than a year earlier, many of whom lived in extreme poverty in 2010.