State economist Pearl Imada Iboshi said she didn't feel the increase was significant. She noted that the averages were taken from years that endured economic hits such as 9/11 and the SARS scare.

Iboshi said that if the economy were to continue at its current accelerated pace, with its low unemployment rate and growing labor force, she would expect the poverty rate to fall.

But Susan Chandler of the University of Hawai'i's Social Sciences Public Policy Center said that with poverty figures holding steady or even increasing in the face of the state's low unemployment rate, it could indicate quite a few people getting low-wage jobs.

"There are a lot of tourist-industry jobs that don't pay that well, and what we might be seeing is a significant number of working poor," she said.

The Census Bureau's definition of poverty varies by the size of the household. For instance, the threshold for a family of four was $18,810, while for two people it was $12,015.

Hawai'i's median family income, based on the same three-year average, was $49,839, or 11th among states. The national figure was $43,527. This year's median income was $64 more than last year's median, which also was based on a three-year average.

As for Hawai'i residents without health insurance, the three-year average was 9.9 percent, up from last year's figure of 9.7 percent.

The numbers are no surprise to Gerard Russo, University of Hawai'i associate professor of economics and part of a team of economists hired by the state Health Department to analyze the state's health insurance data. He said the rate has been hovering around 10 percent for the past five years or so.

However, Russo said, the rate of uninsured in the state used to be about 7 percent when the Hawai'i economy was booming in the 1980s. He said the rise may be a reflection of economic conditions and perhaps an increase in insurance costs.

Still, Hawai'i, with its mandatory healthcare coverage for private-sector employees working more than 20 hours, ranks an enviable No. 43 in the nation in terms of the number of uninsured.

Nationally, the number of Americans living in poverty increased by 1.3 million last year, while the ranks of the uninsured swelled by 1.4 million.

It was the third straight annual increase for both categories. Approximately 35.8 million people lived below the poverty line in 2003, or about 12.5 percent of the population, according to the bureau. That was up from 34.5 million, or 12.1 percent in 2002.

The rise was more dramatic for children. There were 12.9 million living in poverty last year, or 17.6 percent of the under-18 population. That was an increase of about 800,000 from 2002, when 16.7 percent of all children were in poverty.

Nearly 45 million people lacked health insurance, or 15.6 percent of the population. That was up from 43.5 million in 2002, or 15.2 percent, but was a smaller increase than in the two previous years.

Uninsured rates for children, though, were relatively stable at 11.4 percent, likely the result of recent expansions of coverage in government programs covering the poor and children, such as the state Children's Health Insurance Program, analysts said.

Meanwhile, the median household income, when adjusted for inflation, remained basically flat last year at $43,318. Whites, blacks and Asians saw no noticeable change, but income fell 2.6 percent for Hispanics to nearly $33,000. Asians had the highest income at more than $55,000, while whites made $47,800 and blacks nearly $30,000.