At the close of the 20th century, 12.4 percent of the U.S. population, or 33.9 million people, reported 1999 family incomes that were below the poverty thresholds, down from 13.1 percent in 1989.¹ The incidence of poverty varied considerably across regions, states, counties, and cities, and some groups experienced higher rates of poverty than others.

This report, which exhibits data on the poverty population, is part of a series that presents population and housing data collected by Census 2000.² It describes population distributions for the United States, including characteristics of regions, states, counties, and places with populations of 100,000 or more. A description of how the Census Bureau measures poverty may be found on page 2 and the poverty thresholds used are in Table 1.

Declines in poverty between 1989 and 1999 were registered for most of the age groups shown in Figure 1 and Table 2. The poverty rate for children ( those under 18) declined by 1.7 percentage points, from 18.3 percent in 1989 to 16.6 percent in 1999.

Despite declines, the child poverty rate in 1999 still surpassed rates for adult age groups. In 1999, for example, the poverty rate for people 18 to 64 was 11.1 percent, and the poverty rate for people 65 to 74 and those 75 and over were 8.5 percent and 11.5 percent, respectively. Notably, people 18 to 64 experienced an increase in poverty over the decade.

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¹ The estimates in this report are based on responses from a sample of the population. As with all surveys, estimates may vary from the actual values because of sampling variation or other factors. All statements made in this report have undergone statistical testing and are significant at the 90-percent confidence level unless otherwise noted.

² The text of this report discusses data for the United States, including the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Data for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico are shown in Table 3 and Figure 3.