Despite job growth, the number of Americans living in poverty rose to 37 million in 2004 - up 1.1 million from 2003 - according to new Census Bureau figures released Tuesday.

It marks the fourth straight increase in the government's annual poverty measure. Utah's 9.5 percent poverty rate showed no change.

The Census Bureau also said national household incomes remained flat, and that the number of people without health insurance edged up by about 800,000, to 45.8 million people.

Advocates for the poor say the data are proof that recovery from the 2001 recession is neither strong nor broad-based, and is leaving many Americans behind. They urge the U.S. Congress to reject proposals for more tax cuts and plans to reduce spending on social welfare programs, such as Medicaid and food stamps.

"Congress should not be pursuing policies that take these adverse trends and make them worse," said Robert Greenstein, director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington.

While disappointed, the Bush administration - which has not seen a decline in poverty numbers since the president took office - said it was not surprised by the new statistics.

Commerce Department spokeswoman E.R. Anderson said they mirror a trend in the '80s and '90s, in which unemployment peaks were followed by peaks in poverty, and then by a decline in the poverty numbers.

''We hope this is it, that this is the last gasp of indicators for the recession,'' she said.

But Greenstein says the current three-year poverty trend is atypical.

In no other downturn over the past 45 years did poverty increase between the second and third full years of the recovery, he said.

Overall, the nation's poverty rate rose to 12.7 percent of the population last year.

The last decline in overall poverty was in 2000, during the Clinton administration, when 31.1 million people lived under the threshold. Since then, the number of people in poverty has increased steadily from 32.9 million in 2001, when the economy slipped into recession, to 35.8 million in 2003.

Utah is faring better than most states, boasting higher-than-average household incomes and lower-than-average poverty and uninsured rates. Utah's median household income rose $349 last year.

Sarah Wilhelm, an analyst at the low-income advocacy group Utah Issues, attributes this to job growth and more people working longer hours, rather than wage increases.

Employer benefits, such as health insurance, are not improving, as shown by the 313,820 Utahns without health insurance, up 17,026 from 2003.

Nationally, the number of uninsured grew from 45 million to 45.8 million last year, but the number of people with health insurance grew by 2 million.

Charles Nelson, an assistant division chief at the Census Bureau, said the rate remained relatively steady because of an ''increase in government coverage, notably Medicaid and the state children's health insurance program that offset a decline in employment-based coverage.''

While there was no change in Utah's poverty rate, the raw number of poor grew from 213,000 to 236,000 - 41 percent of whom are children.

"How much more data does Congress need before it does the right thing for children?" asked Karen Crompton, director of Voices for Utah Children.

Nationally, whites were the only ethnic group to show a rise in poverty, while blacks had the lowest median income.

Regionally, income declined only in the Midwest, down 2.8 percent to $44,657. The South was the poorest region and the Northeast and the West had the highest median incomes.

kstewart@sltrib.com

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.