The percentage of the U.S. population who are poor increased 15.1 percent in 2010 to 46.2 million and the number of Americans who have no health insurance rose to 49.9 million last year.

The U.S. Census Bureau, which revealed the data on Tuesday, said the number of poor Americans last year was the highest since it started compiling related statistics in 1959 and the fourth consecutive annual increase. In 2009, the percentage of poor Americans was 14.3 percent of the population.

"Families are struggling to put food on the table, and they don't have the purchasing power to help the economy recover," Bloomberg quoted Isabel Sawhill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, as saying.

The bureau blamed high joblessness and the weak economy for the rise in poverty level. In the past two years, unemployment stood at more than 9 percent. The jobless rate rose to 9.6 percent in 2010 from 9.3 percent in 2009.

The economic growth rate is seen declining to below 1 percent per year causing the financial struggles of families to continue.
Further erosion of incomes of middle class households was blamed for the rise in the number of Americans without healthcare coverage.

The average yearly household income in the U.S. fell 2.3 percent in 2010 from 2009 to $49,445 from $50,599 the year before. The poverty rate in 2010 was an income of $11,139 for single person and $22,314 for a family of four. These incomes exclude food-stamp benefits and low-income tax credits.

The bureau's data are based on a survey of 100,000 households.