The poverty rate among people who reported that they were Black increased to 24.1 in 2002, up from 22.7 percent in 2001.  The poverty rate for Blacks was the highest among the other groups the U.S. Census Bureau measures and the only group to see its poverty rate increase.

The poverty rates for other groups did not change.  The poverty rate for non-Hispanic Whites is only 8.0 percent; for the four groups of Asians - - the rate ranged from 10.0 percent to 10.3 percent, and for Hispanics, who may be of any race, 21.8 percent.  "This nation does not have a money problem. It has a values and priorities problem," commented Children's Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman on the country's poverty rates.