Maine’s poverty rate decreased last year while the nation’s poverty rate remained stuck at 15 percent. 

The poverty rate in Maine for 2012 was 12.8 percent — down from 13.4 percent in 2011. In New England, only Rhode Island was higher at 13.6 percent.

• Other states poverty rates were:
• Massachussetts: 11.3 percent
• Vermont: 11.2 percent
• Connecticut: 10.3 percent
• New Hampshire: 8.1 percent

New Hampshire had the lowest poverty rate in the nation. Alabama had the highest at 16.2 percent.

The data

• Number of Poor and Poverty Rate, by State [XLS – 125k]
• More tables and figures

Poverty stuck at 15 percent

WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation’s poverty rate remained stuck at 15 percent last year despite America’s slowly reviving economy, a discouraging lack of improvement for the record 46.5 million poor and an unwelcome benchmark for President Barack Obama’s recovery plans.

More than 1 in 7 Americans were living in poverty, not statistically different from the 46.2 million of 2011 and the sixth straight year the rate had failed to improve, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday. Median income for the nation’s households was $51,017, also unchanged from the previous year after two consecutive annual declines, while the share of people without health insurance did improve but only a bit, from 15.7 percent to 15.4 percent.

“We’re in the doldrums, with high poverty and inequality as the new normal for the foreseeable future,” said Timothy Smeeding, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specializes in income inequality. “The fact we’ve seen no real recovery in employment and wages means we’ve just flatlined.”

Mississippi had the highest share of its residents in poverty, at 22 percent, according to rough calculations by the Census Bureau. It was followed by Louisiana, New Mexico and Arkansas. On the other end of the scale, New Hampshire had the lowest share, at 8.1 percent.