Share of uninsured Americans rises for 1st time in a decade
The data suggest that the current economic expansion, now the longest on record at more than 10 years, is still struggling to provide widespread benefits to the
The Census report found that 27.5 million people, 8.5% of the population, lacked health insurance coverage in 2018. That was an increase of 1.9 million uninsured, or 0.5 percentage point.
One bright spot in the report was that the poverty rate fell for a fourth straight year to 11.8%, its lowest point since 2001. The proportion of households led by women that were poor reached a record low.
"While any reduction in poverty or increase in income is a step in the right direction, most families have just barely made up the ground lost over the past decade," said
Though income inequality narrowed last year, it remains near record levels reached in 2017. Last year, the richest 5% of the
Still, steady hiring and an unemployment rate at 3.7%, near a five-decade low, have helped raise earnings for lower-paid workers employed by restaurants, warehouses, shipping firms and other sectors of the economy. This trend has contributed to a decline in poverty.
On health insurance, more people were covered by Medicare, reflecting the aging of baby boomers. But Medicaid coverage declined. The number of uninsured children also rose. And there were more uninsured adults ages 35-64.
Though the increase in the number of uninsured Americans was modest, it could be a turning point, the first real sign that coverage gains under Obama could be at least partly reversed. This year, the number of uninsured could rise again. That's because a previous Republican-led Congress repealed fines under the Affordable Care Act that had been intended to prod people to sign up for coverage.
The Census report is sure to play into 2020 presidential politics. Health care is the leading issue for
Trump spent most of his first year in office trying unsuccessfully to get a
Yet ACA enrollment has held fairly steady, with about 20 million people covered by its mix of subsidized private plans and a Medicaid expansion for low-income individuals. The Census report found that Medicaid coverage declined by 0.7 percent from 2017.
The Trump administration has also rolled out some regulatory changes of its own intended to expand coverage. These include "association health plans" for small businesses, short-term plans for individuals and new options for employers to help finance workers' coverage. These changes are fairly recent, though, and it's unclear what impact they might eventually have.
Changes in how Census conducts its income survey have made historical comparisons difficult. Still, household incomes largely declined for the first five years after the recession ended, before taking a sharp turn up in 2015, when they rose 5.1%. Incomes jumped 3.1% the next year but then slowed to 1.8% in 2017 and barely rose last year.
The economic expansion hasn't noticeably narrowed the income gap between white and
Women earned nearly
Many economists consider the poverty rate an antiquated measure that is based mostly on food costs and that doesn't reflect all government benefit programs.
A second calculation, known as the "supplemental poverty measure," includes health care expenses and shows that 13.1% of Americans are in poverty, essentially unchanged from 2017. This measure also includes the effects of government benefit programs like
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