BEIJING, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Almost one out of eight U.S. citizens lives in poverty with poor population in the United States constantly increasing, according to a report issued here Thursday.

    It was revealed in the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2007 which was released by the Information Office of China's State Council on Thursday. The report was prepared to help people around the world understand the real situation of human rights in the United States.

    According to statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau in August 2007, the official poverty rate in 2006 was 12.3 percent. There were 36.5 million people, or 7.7 million families living in poverty in the same year.

    In another word, almost one out of eight U.S. citizens lives in poverty and the poverty rate in Mississippi was as high as 21.1 percent, a figure released by USA Today was quoted by the Chinese report.

    The poverty rate of major U.S. cities was 16.1 percent. The rate was 15.2 percent in suburban areas and 13.8 percent in the south. The poverty rate in the Washington D.C. was 19.8 percent, which meant nearly one-fifth of its citizens were living in poverty, it said.

    The report also outlined that the wealth of the richest group in the United States has rapidly expanded in recent years, widening the earning gap between the rich and poor.

    The earnings of the highest one percent of the population accounted for 21.2 percent of U.S. total national income in 2005, compared with 19 percent in 2004.

    At the same time, the earnings of the lowest 50 percent of the population accounted for 12.8 percent of the total national income in 2005, down from 13.4 percent in 2004, the report quoted a Reuters coverage as saying.

    The number of "ultra-high-net worth" U.S. households, that is, those with a net worth of 5 million U.S. dollars or more, excluding the value of their primary homes, reached 1.14 million in 2006, a 23 percent rise from 930,000 in 2005, the report pointed out.

    Top executives of major U.S. businesses made an average of more than 10 million U.S. Dollars in 2006, 364 times that of ordinary workers. They earn as much money in one day of work as ordinary workers make over the entire year, the report said.