"In the recession last year, the nationâs poverty rate climbed to 13.2 percent up from 12.5 percent in 2007, according to an annual report released Thursday by the Census Bureau. The poverty line in 2008 was defined as $22,025 for a family of four." http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/11/us/11poverty.html based on 330M pop, no health insurance Americans 330M x13.2% = 43.5M