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The poor (and everyone else) getting poorer
Today, the Census Bureau came out with its annual report on incomes, poverty and health insurance. I'll spare you the depression of reading through the whole thing and just give you a couple of the lowlights.
The takeaway from David Leonhardt at the Economix blog was that median household income fell to $50,303 last year from $52,163 in 2007. That means, for the decade, income is lower:
In the four decades that the Census Bureau has been tracking household income, there has never before been a full decade in which median income failed to rise...
What's going on here? It's a combination of two trends. One, economic growth in the current decade has been slower than in any decade since before World War II. Two, inequality has risen sharply, so much of the bounty from our growth has gone to a relatively small slice of the population.
To underscore that point, the number of people in poverty increase by 2.5 million to almost 40 million. That's 13.2% of the population, the highest rate of poverty in more than a decade. For a family of four, that means making less than $22,000.
Reuters blogger Felix Salmon notes this:
The poverty rate for children under the age of 18 is now an eye-popping 19%: basically one child in every five is living in poverty in the US. And even if a slow economic recovery is beginning to take hold, I can't see that number declining much in the foreseeable future. Which is unconscionable, in the richest country in the world.
The only positive to come out of the data was that the percentage of children without health insurance fell to under 10%, which is the lowest number since the Bureau started keeping track.
Another way to look the income situation would be -- what are the best places to earn a living? Forbes has a list for that. Topping the list: Dallas, Houston, Austin, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Atlanta and Washington, DC.
I suppose that means your best chance of making more money could lie deep in the heart of Texas.
"...inequality has risen sharply, so much of the bounty from our growth has gone to a relatively small slice of the population."
Does this not justify progressively higher tax rates---particularly on multi-million dollar compensation packages?
http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14363270
This economist article points out that the top 1% of Americans by income already pay 38.4% of income taxes. If governments try to push that number up further, there will be diminishing returns because the richest have the resources to flee to lower tax geographies: For example Californians move to Nevada.
45.7 Million Uninsured Breakdown
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Illegal Immigrants = 9.3 million
Medicad Undercount = 6.4 million
Medicaid/SCHIP Eligible = 4.3 million
Childless Adults = 5.0 million
Over 300% of Poverty = 10.1 million
Remaining Uninsured = 10.6 million
Medicad Undercount – People who are on one of two government health insurance programs, Medicaid or S-CHIP, but mistakenly (intentionally or not) tell the Census taker that they are uninsured.
Medicaid/SCHIP Eligible – Eligible for free or heavily subsidized government health insurance (again, either Medcaid or SCHIP), but have not signed up.
Childless Adults – Adults between ages 18 and 34 and without kids.
Over 300% of Poverty – Do not fit into any of the above categories, and they have incomes more than 3X the poverty level.
Remaining Uninsured – U.S. citizens, with income below 300% of poverty, not on or eligible for a taxpayer-subsidized health insurance program, and not a childless adult between age 18 and 34.
I thought the mandate of the Census Bureau was to make a head count every few years for purposes of gerrymandering the political maps. Who gave them the authority to collect economic data??? One more thing. No representatives of the Census Bureau ever came through my neighborhood. Are we part of the wrong race or ethnic group? What's the deal there?
