New Census figures show poverty in Illinois is at its highest point since 1992 — no surprise to economists and advocates for the poor.

The official state and local poverty figures will be released by the Census next week, but the 2010 Current Population Survey, released Tuesday, included some state-level data.

It showed more than 1.8 million of the state's 12.9 million residents, or 14.1 percent, living below the poverty line — for a family of four, an annual income of $22,314.

That's the most since 1992, when the rate hit 15.2 percent and 1.86 million people were in poverty.

Broken down, 11.2 percent of all families, 41.8 percent of families headed by a woman, 8.1 percent of seniors and fully 21.1 percent of children (those under age 18) in the state were defined as poor.

Elizabeth Powers, associate professor of economics at the University of Illinois Institute of Government of Public Affairs, was not surprised by the numbers.

"With the unemployment rate that we have, it is no surprise that there's a lot more poverty. Technically the recession's been over for a long time," Powers said, but "for the typical person it's not over at all. We're still waiting for the labor market recovery."

Illinois historically has tracked national trends in terms of poverty but with lower rates overall, aside from 2002-03 after the state was "walloped" by the 2001 recession, she said. But for the last few years poverty in the state has moved closer to national levels, she said.

Nationally, a record 46.2 million people were in poverty in 2010, or 15.1 percent of the total population, including 22 percent of children, according to the Census. That also included 9.9 percent of whites, 12.1 percent of Asians, and more than a quarter of the country's black (27.4 percent) and Hispanic (26.6 percent) residents. State figures were not broken down by racial group.

"Our poverty is worsening, but not at a worse pace than the nation," Powers said.

Amy Terpstra, associate director of Heartland Alliance's Social Impact Research Center in Chicago, said next week's data could show an even grimmer picture. Because the report released Tuesday surveys a smaller number of Americans, it uses a two-year average for data, which could have diluted the extent of poverty, she said.

"We know that things have not gotten better in Illinois in terms of our job situation," Terpstra said.

The national trends indicate that not only poverty is increasing, but also "extreme poverty" — people living below half of the poverty line.

"So what we see is not only more people becoming poor, but more people become poorer," she said.

Another barometer: real median household income. Currently at $49.450 nationally, it "took a dive" from 2009 to 2010 and is 7.1 percent below its peak in 1999, Terpstra said. It's dropped steadily in the last decade, both nationally and in Illinois, reflecting job losses, reduced hours for workers, and a general decline in well-paying jobs, she said.

Powers, who researches economic growth and poverty, said income has become "very polarized" in the United States. People in the highest income groups have held steady, but those at the low end have lost ground. Despite growth in the nation's gross domestic product, the primary measure of economic growth, the bottom 10 percent of the population is earning 12 percent less than it did a decade ago, she said.

In that scenario, she said, poverty becomes persistent.

"You can't earn your way out if your income is dropping all the time," Powers said.

Lower-wage earners don't tend to have other sources of income, and "there's no welfare to speak of any more, either," she said. "When they have a bad shock, they tip back into poverty quite easily."

Darlene Kloeppel, social services director for the Champaign County Regional Planning Commission, said the state and national data fit the picture she sees every day.

"A lot of the people we work with who apply for benefits do have jobs. They have income. They're just not making enough," she said.

The agency has programs to help seniors pay for medications, help low-income households pay utility bills, and help people move out of poverty. She said requests for help are on the rise, and 5 percent to 10 percent are from first-time applicants.