Poverty data released by the U. S. Census Bureau indicates no significant progress toward reducing the poverty rate during a period of economic recovery. The 1986 poverty rate of 13.6 percent remains significantly higher than anytime in the 1970s. Minority group children represent the largest age group of the poverty population. The sluggish performance in reducing the poverty rate is representative of an uneven economic recovery. The 1986 data include the following: (1) 32.4 million Americans are poor; (2) 6.3 million more Americans were poor in 1986 than in 1979; (3) 12.7 million children (20.2 percent) are poor; (4) 43.3 percent of all Black children are poor; (5) 37.4 percent of all Hispanic children are poor; (7) 12.7 million (39.2 percent) poor people had incomes below half the poverty line, the highest level in more than a decade; and (8) the gap between the rich and the poor is the widest in 40 years. Analysis of data from 1959 to 1985 indicates the following: (1) the poverty rate in 1986 was higher than in any other years with similar unemployment rates; (2) the number of working poor has increased; (3) the poor are more deeply in poverty than ever before; (4) the poverty rate for Blacks was nearly three times that for Whites; (5) the poverty level for Hispanics was more than double that for Whites; (6) President Lyndon Johnson's 1964 "war on poverty" was followed by a decline in the poverty rate that stabilized at an all-time low of 11 to 12 percent during the 1970s; and (7) in 1979 the poverty rate began a 5-year increase. Statistical data are included on seven tables and four graphs. (FMW)