About 24.3 million persons were below the poverty level in 1969, according to the results of the Current Population Survey conducted in March 1970 by the Bureau of the Census. Between 1968 and 1969, the number of poor persons was reduced by 1.1 million, or by 4.3 percent. During this period there was a decline in the number of both white and Negro persons who were poor. Negroes comprised three-tenths of all poor persons in both 1968 and 1969. The number of poor persons who were either members of families with a male head or male unrelated individuals declined by 8 percent during this one-year period. However, there was no measurable change in the number of members of poor families with a female head and poor female unrelated individuals between 1968 and 1969. The decade of the 1960's has witnessed a sizable reduction in the proportion of persons living in poverty. The ratio of poor persons to the total population was 12 percent in 1969 as compared with 22 percent in 1959.

In 1969, family members under 18 years of age accounted for 35 percent of all white persons below the poverty level as compared with 54 percent of all Negroes who were poor. In contrast, persons 65 and over made up one-fourth of all poor white persons and only one-tenth of the Negro poor.