The nation's poverty rate dipped slightly last year, marking its first decline since 2006, according to government data released Tuesday. But the number of Americans -- approximately 45.3 million people -- living at or below the poverty line remained about the same, while wages barely budged, the U.S. Census Bureau's annual estimates on income, poverty and the uninsuredshowed.
The nation's poverty rate was slightly lower at 14.5 percent last year compared to 15 percent in 2012, while the median income for people in the United States remained about flat at $51,900 in 2013 compared to the previous year. It was the second straight year that median wages remained about the same for Americans. The percentage of people who did not have health insurance coverage decreased by 0.2 percentage points between 2012 and 2013 to 14.5 percent, according to the Census Bureau's data. Also not budging much: the wage gap between men and women. The median wages for women working full time came in at about 78 percent of what men earned in 2013, a number that hasn't risen significantly since 2007.
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-- Reuters contributed to this report.
