The seventh annual Report on Illinois Poverty illustrates that Illinois families are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet.

Over 85% of Illinois’ 102 counties had increases in poverty, nearly 1.5 million Illinoisans are poor – almost 700,000 of them live in extreme poverty, below half the poverty line – and over one third of Illinoisans in poverty are children.

Copies of the full report, including a Chicago-area snapshot, are online here:

www.heartlandalliance.org/maip/research.html