WASHINGTON: The ranks of America’s poorest poor have climbed to a record high — 1 in 15 people — spread widely across metropolitan areas as the housing bust pushed many inner-city poor into suburbs and other outlying places and shriveled jobs and income.New census data paint a stark portrait of the nation’s haves and have-nots at a time when unemployment remains persistently high.After declining during the 1990s economic boom, the proportion of poor people in large metropolitan areas who lived in high-poverty neighborhoods jumped from 11.2 percent in 2000 to 15.1 percent last year, according to a Brookings Institution analysis released today. The Brookings report points to Akron, Detroit and Grand Rapids, Mich., as Rust Belt metropolitan areas where extreme poverty continues amid a renewed decline in manufacturing.Poverty in Akron increased to nearly three in 10 residents or 29.4 percent in 2010, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. The same category was 23.7 percent before the recession officially began in December 2007. In all, the numbers underscore the breadth and scope by which the downturn has reached further into mainstream America.“There now really is no unaffected group, except maybe the very top income earners,” said Robert Moffitt, a professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University. “Recessions are supposed to be temporary, and when it’s over, everything returns to where it was before. But the worry now is that the downturn ... will have long-lasting effects on families who lose jobs, become worse off and can’t recover.”Neighborhoods with poverty rates of at least 40 percent are stretching over broader areas, increasing in suburbs at twice the rate of cities.About 20.5 million Americans, or 6.7 percent of the U.S. population, make up the poorest poor, defined as those at 50 percent or less of the official poverty level. Those living in deep poverty represent nearly half of the 46.2 million people scraping by below the poverty line. In 2010, the poorest poor meant an income of $5,570 or less for an individual and $11,157 for a family of four.That 6.7 percent share is the highest in the 35 years that the Census Bureau has maintained such records, surpassing previous highs in 2009 and 1993 of just over 6 percent.Beacon Journal staff writer David Knox contributed to this report.