According to a new report, the number of people living in poverty in the US remained at a high level similar to that of 2010.

The U. S. Census Bureau released a report on Wednesday, which showed that a total of 46.2 million Americans were living in poverty in 2011, which is a poverty rate of about 15 per cent. About the same number of people was living in poverty in 2010, which is the highest level since the beginning of records.

The officials said that the poverty figure in 2010 was 15.1 percent, which is indistinguishable from the 2011 figures. The federal poverty level for a family of four was $22,811 in 2011. The report also said that all but the top five percent of the American faced a fall in income.

Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) in Washington said that the income of the top five percent of the population has been fully restored and as a result the inequalities will rise. Poverty in the country has been pushed due to high levels of unemployment.

The U. S. Department of Agriculture had reported in the previous week that a total of 50.1 million Americans lived in households struggling with hunger in 2011 compared to 48.8 million in 2010.