BEIJING - The rich-poor divide expanded in the United States, with an increasing number of homeless people, according to the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2017 released by China on Tuesday.

The report was released by the Information Office of the State Council, China's cabinet, in response to the US Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2017.

According to official statistics from the US Census Bureau, more than 40 million American people were living in poverty. Nearly half of them, 18.5 million, were living in deep poverty.

According to the World Income Inequality Database, the United States has the highest Gini rate (measuring inequality) of all Western Countries. In the OECD, the United States ranks 35th out of 37 in terms of poverty and inequality.

The US government has failed to effectively control use of drug and addictive medicine. A Medical Press report revealed that 7.7 million Americans abused illicit drugs.

Also, nearly 40 percent of 12th-graders, 28 percent of 10th-graders and 12.9 percent of eighth-graders had used some sort of illicit drugs in the past year, according to American media reports in 2017.

The report released by China also said the US health care system was deeply flawed. Results of a survey released by Pew Research Center on Dec 14, 2017 showed positive ratings for the government' s handling of ensuring access to health care had declined 20 percentage points since 2015.