The national poverty rate has dropped, thanks mostly to a better-off older population, but the number of people without health insurance keeps climbing.

Pennsylvanians, meanwhile, have lower household incomes than most U.S. residents, but they're more likely to be above poverty levels and to be insured. The same is true of most residents of the Pittsburgh region.

Those are among the mixed findings from U.S. Census Bureau data released yesterday as part of an annual evaluation of the country's progress -- or lack thereof -- addressing poverty, income and insurance coverage.

Despite some trends suggesting many households were better off in 2006 than in 2005 in terms of income and poverty, advocates for low-to-moderate-income workers and families said the new data raised some concerns. They saw things getting better for small slices of the population, but not in the broad sense that should accompany recovery from the 2001 recession.

"The new figures are the latest evidence that the economic growth of the past few years has been very uneven, with the gains concentrated among the highest-income Americans," said Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning research group in Washington, D.C.

That group was among those that focused on a continuing decline in the percentage of Americans covered by health insurance. The number without insurance rose to 47 million in 2006, from 44.8 million, according to the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey. On a percentage basis, they represent 15.8 percent of the population, compared with 15.3 percent in 2005.

Government officials noted that employer-sponsored health insurance has continued to erode. Particularly disconcerting to some critics of the Bush administration is that the number of uninsured children increased to 8.7 million, from 8 million. The White House has been in a dispute with Democratic congressional leaders over whether to expand the government-funded Children's Health Insurance Program.

Pennsylvanians fare better than the rest of the nation in insurance coverage. The Census Bureau uses a three-year average for its estimates of state rates, and during 2004-06, only about 10.2 percent of Pennsylvanians went without coverage, compared with a national rate of 15.3 percent. Pennsylvania's high percentage of elderly covered by Medicare and an ambitious program to enroll children in CHIP could explain much of the difference.

The nation's official poverty rate declined from 12.6 percent in 2005 to 12.3 percent in 2006, when the poverty threshold for a family of four was $20,614. Some analysts considered it good news, while others pointed out it remained well above the 11.3 percent rate of 2000.

The rate did not change for people younger than 65, but among those older, just 9.4 percent were in poverty in 2006 compared with 10.1 percent in 2005.

A separate government report released yesterday, called the American Community Survey or ACS, used different methodology from the Current Population Survey to estimate a national poverty rate of 13.3 percent. It gave a Pennsylvania rate of 12.1 percent, and also provided county-by-county comparisons for the region that were nearly all better than the nation's rate.

The ACS estimated Allegheny County's poverty rate at 12.5 percent, and the rate in Armstrong County at 11.8 percent; Beaver, 10.5 percent; Butler, 7.9 percent; Fayette, 19.7 percent; Washington, 10.0 percent; and Westmoreland, 9.2 percent. The estimated poverty rate for the city of Pittsburgh was 22.2 percent.

Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare officials released data a day earlier touting a reduction in welfare rolls to their lowest level since 1961. But Joni Rabinowitz, co-director of Just Harvest, an anti-hunger advocacy group, maintained it would be misleading to interpret either that or the poverty rate data as an indication that families are better off in southwestern Pennsylvania.

"We continue to see a flat employment picture, and plenty of people working at low-wage jobs, not seeing increases in their wages, while the cost of utilities especially has gone up beyond their imagination," Ms. Rabinowitz said. "We don't think the decline in [welfare] caseloads is a matter of them doing a better job of moving clients into better jobs."

The Current Population Survey showed a curious juxtaposition in two financial trends: the median earnings for working Americans dropped from 2005 to 2006, but inflation-adjusted median household income rose to $48,201 from $47,845. The two changes seem inconsistent, but David Johnson, chief of the Census Bureau's Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division, said it's explained by an increase in the number of full-time, year-round workers per household.

So the rise in household income is from more people working longer, not from better pay for the same labor.

Shelli Lewis, a 48-year-old mother and grandmother from North Braddock, said she recently applied for food stamps through Just Harvest for the first time because of financial pressures. She works full time in the office of a social services agency. It and the state cover her family's health insurance needs, but Ms. Lewis said it has become more difficult to cover other costs.

"I just finally had to succumb to trying to get [government] assistance," she said. "Incomes like mine aren't escalating at the same degree as prices for day-to-day living things. We're not talking about a lifestyle of any extravagance. We're talking about basic necessities like lights, gas, housing."

Unlike Pennsylvania's favorable comparisons in other areas, the state and most of its counties have lower household incomes than is the case nationally. Again, it could be a factor of the state's older population, which would tend to live above the poverty rate but without the same level of earnings as others.

The American Community Survey estimated the U.S. median household income at $48,451, slightly higher than in the other government survey, with Pennsylvania at $46,259. For Western Pennsylvania counties, its estimates were: Armstrong, $36,701; Allegheny, $43,691; Beaver, $42,023; Butler, $52,943; Fayette, $31,637; Washington, $45,789; and Westmoreland, $43,617. Pittsburgh's estimated median income was $31,779.

More details from the reports can be found under "Income, Poverty & Health Insurance Coverage" at www.census.gov.