美国极贫人口比例升新高

The ranks of America's poorest poor have climbed to a record high — 1 in 15 people — spread widely across metropolitan² areas as the housing bust³ pushed many inner-city poor into suburbs and other outlying places and shriveled jobs and income.

美国极贫人口的比例升至历史新高——15个人中就有1个人极度贫困。这些极贫人口广泛地分布在大都市各个地区中，因为大都市的房市崩溃迫使许多住在市中心贫民区的穷人搬到了郊区和其他边远地区，减少了他们的工作机会和收入。

New census⁴ data paint a stark⁵（完全的，荒凉的） portrait of the nation's haves and have-nots at a time when unemployment remains⁶ persistently⁷ high. It comes a week before the government releases first-ever economic data that will show more Hispanics, elderly and working-age poor have fallen into poverty.

In all, the numbers underscore the breadth（宽度，幅度） and scope by which the downturn has reached further into mainstream⁸ America.

"There now really is no unaffected group, except maybe the very top income earners," said Robert Moffitt, a professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University. "Recessions are supposed to be temporary, and when it's over, everything returns to where it was before. But the worry now is that the downturn — which will end eventually — will have long-lasting effects on families who lose jobs, become worse off and can't recover."

Traditional inner-city black ghettos（犹太社区） are thinning out and changing, drawing in impoverished⁹（穷困的） Hispanics who have low-wage jobs or are unemployed¹⁰. Neighborhoods with poverty rates of at least 40 percent are stretching over broader areas, increasing in suburbs at twice the rate of cities.

Once-booming Sun Belt metro¹ areas are now seeing some of the biggest jumps in concentrated poverty.

Signs of a growing divide between rich and poor can be seen in places such as the upscale Miami suburb of Miami Shores, where nannies gather with their charges at a playground nestled between the township's sprawling¹¹ golf course and soccer fields. The locale（场所，现场） is a far cry from where many of them live.

About 20.5 million Americans, or 6.7 percent of the US population, make up the poorest poor, defined as those at 50 percent or less of the official poverty level. Those living in deep poverty represent nearly half of the 46.2 million people scraping by below the poverty line. In 2010, the poorest poor meant an income of $5,570 or less for an individual and $11,157 for a family of four.

That 6.7 percent share is the highest in the 35 years that the Census Bureau has maintained such records, surpassing previous highs in 2009 and 1993 of just over 6 percent.