U.S. poverty rate drops for first time since 2006
By Alfred Lubrano, The Philadelphia Inquirer | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
Children's poverty also declined, while median household income barely changed between 2012 and 2013.
The report further shows that 42 million people, or 13.4 percent of Americans, were without health-insurance coverage in 2013.
The data were compiled in the 2014 Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement, which describes conditions in 2013. Local poverty numbers for
The percentage of people living in poverty fell from 15 percent in 2012 to 14.5 percent in 2013.
The number of Americans living in poverty remained at 45.3 million people, a figure that hasn't changed significantly in the last three years.
The poverty rate for children under 18 nationwide went down from 21.8 percent in 2012, to 19.9 percent in 2013.
The report also pegs the median household income in
Academics and other poverty experts interpreted the report as a good news/bad news scenario.
That poverty declined is welcome news on any level, they said. But the poverty rate is still higher than it was in 2000, when it was calculated at 11.3 percent, experts said.
And while child poverty has fallen, it's still "a huge number," around 20 percent, or one in five under age 18, said
Meanwhile, the median-income numbers in the report show that while the rich are doing well, the rest of America isn't.
"We have now had a 13-year period of wage stagnation," said
Danziger referenced a chart in the report that shows that, adjusted for inflation, men in 1972 had higher median incomes than they do today.
While it's not possible to attribute any particular improvements in the poverty rate to a single reason, Census officials suggested that levels of poverty for the general population and for children may have decreased because of changes in work patterns.
Specifically, a noticeable number of people moved from part-time work done part of the year to more substantial jobs.
The number of men working full-time, year-round jobs increased by 1.8 million between 2012 and 2013, the report shows. The number of women went up by one million.
Many of the workers who improved their lot are parents who were able to lift their children out of poverty, said
Still, academics and advocates said, the wages people received for these jobs were low.
Overall, the modest improvement in the poverty rate "won't knock your socks off," said
The conservative
Academics disagree with that interpretation. Columbia researchers have shown that the money spent to help the poor has actually prevented the poverty rate from skyrocketing.
For example, Skinner said,
The poverty rate that the Census reports does not include food stamp benefits, or tax credits for workers, both proven to lower poverty rates, experts said.
Also released by the Census on Tuesday were health- insurance coverage estimates for 2013, before most provisions of the Affordable Care Act took effect.
They showed a one-year decline in uninsured of two-tenths of one percentage point nationally.
More recent surveys have found notable drops in rates of the uninsured since most of Obamacare kicked in on
Gallup last month reported a 3.4 percentage point drop nationally from 2013 to mid-2014.
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