Quarter of LA Residents Below Poverty Line, Census Shows

In 2012, 23 percent - nearly a quarter - of Angelenos lived below the poverty line, a figure that's significantly greater than nearby towns like Long Beach and Santa Ana.

And from 2007 to 2012, the number of Angelenos living below the poverty line increased by 5 percent.

What's new about contemporary poverty is that it persists even as the economy is growing, said Michael Stoll, chairman of the department of policy at University of California Los Angeles.

"The wages of the lowest wage workers in the United States have barely kept up with inflation whereas the median or top percentile have grown somewhat," Stoll said.