WASHINGTON, Aug 29: The number of Americans living below the poverty line stabilised last year at 37 million after going up for the four years previously, the US Census Bureau said on Tuesday.

A total of 12.6 per cent of US citizens came under the official poverty threshold -- annual income of $9,973 for a single person, or of $19,971 for a family of four.

The figure was “statistically unchanged” from the 2004 poverty rate of 12.7 per cent reported by the Census Bureau.

Real median household income in the United States rose by 1.1 per cent from 2004 to reach $46,326 last year. It was the time since 1999 that real incomes had gone up annually.

But the percentage of people without health insurance coverage rose from 15.6 per cent to 15.9 per cent, to stand at 46.6 million people, the bureau said.

The poverty rate was highest among black Americans, at 24.9 per cent or 9.2 million people, followed by Hispanics at 21.9 per cent. The figures were basically unchanged from 2004.

However, the rate increased among Asian Americans to 11.1 per cent from 9.8.

Fully 32.7 per cent of Hispanic Americans lacked any kind of health insurance last year. The figures were 19.6 per cent for blacks and 17.9 per cent for ethnic Asians.—AFP