Poverty down nationwide

For the first time since 2006, poverty in the United States has dropped.

The country’s poverty rate last year was 14.5 percent, down from 15 percent in 2012, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual report on poverty, which was released Tuesday.

Roughly 45.3 million people in the United States were living in poverty last year, about the same number as the previous two years, the report stated.

Also, the number of children under 18 years old living in poverty fell, from 16.1 million in 2012 to 14.7 million in 2013, a two percent drop. That was the first drop in child poverty since 2000, according to the report.