US admits nearly 36 million live below poverty line

SOME 1.3 million Americans slid into poverty in 2003 as the ranks of the poor swelled to 35.9 million, with children and blacks worse off than most, the US government said yesterday.

The facts were revealed in a report sure to fuel Democratic criticism of President George W Bush.

Despite the economic recovery, the percentage of the US population living in poverty rose to 12.5% - the highest since 1998 - from 12.1% in 2002, the Census Bureau said in its annual poverty report. The report showed one-third of those in poverty were children.