In percentage terms, the nation’s poverty rate rose to 11.7 percent in 2001 from 11.3 the year before. Before rising last year, the poverty rate fell for four straight years.

“Like the last year-to-year increase in poverty in 1991-1992 and the last decrease in real household income in 1990-1991, these changes coincided with a recession,” said Daniel Weinberg, chief of the Census Bureau’s Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division.

The “poverty” threshold, in official terms, was $18,104 for a family of four; $14,128 for a family of three; $11,569 for a family of two, and $9,039 for individuals.

Ah the poverty threshold. What a piece of fiction!

Read the rest in the NYTimes: Recession Cut Incomes and Swelled Poverty Rolls, U.S. Says. via Garret.