Minnesotans’ incomes are up, poverty is down, but successes remain uneven
Yet those successes were not felt equally. Large gaps remain between the income, poverty and insurance rates of many Minnesotans of color and their white neighbors.
Black households did see a 10 percent increase in income over 2015 but still earned just
Much of that growth represents a recovery from 2014, when black household income plummeted to
"We've got a ways to go," Bailey said. He noted that systemic changes in the state's schools, workforce development and housing systems are still needed if
"The disparities we have across races are large and they are persistent," Brower said. "What we've seen in the past few years have been modest, incremental changes. It is going to become increasingly important in coming years that we do something about these disparities."
Poverty rates are on the decline, but Minnesotans of color remain much more likely to be poor than whites.
About 30 percent of black and American Indian residents live below the poverty line, census data show. That's compared with 18 percent of Hispanics, 16 percent of Asians and 7 percent of white residents who have low incomes.
Nationally, 40 million people, or 12.7 percent of the population, lived in poverty in 2016, a slight decline from the year before. The median income for
More Americans have health insurance than ever before, the census found. Nationally, 8.8 percent of residents were uninsured, or about 28 million people.
But residents of color, particularly those who are Hispanic and American Indian, were more likely not to have health insurance.
But Madden cautioned that proposed changes to the federal budget and the Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare, put the state's recent successes at risk.
"It's a certainty that if some of the proposals in
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