How many housing units have been added in your county? View 2011 estimates released Thursday.

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Poverty rates rose in every state but two from 2009 to 2010, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report.

The problem of poverty became more acute in many U.S. neighbourhoods in the Midwest and South over the last decade, threatening schools, safety and public health, while raising costs for local governments, according to a new study. The Brookings Institution, an independent research group, found the populations of extreme poverty neighbourhoods grew by one-third over the last 10 years.

Another 2.6 million people slipped into poverty in the United States last year and the number of Americans living below the official poverty line, 46.2 million people, was the highest number in the 52 years the Census Bureau has been publishing figures on it. And in new signs of distress among the middle class, median household incomes fell last year to levels last seen in 1997. The bureau’s findings were worse than many economists expected.