SPRINGFIELD – The number of Illinois residents living in poverty stabilized in 2011, according to U.S. census data released Wednesday.

There were 9,000 more impoverished Illinoisans, for a total of 1.8 million – about 14 percent. That’s virtually unchanged from the previous year. But it represents an increase of more than a half-million people, or 43 percent, since 2007. That year, 10 percent of the population fell below the poverty line.

Illinois mirrored the nation in poverty numbers. Nationally, there were 46 million impoverished people last year, or 15 percent, about the same as a year earlier, according to the Census Bureau.