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| Ranch style home in North Salinas, California (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
“Poverty remains very problematic,” said Harry Holzer, a public-policy professor at Georgetown University. “[The data] is not something to celebrate, but it’s nice that it didn’t go up.” After rising for three years, neither the number of people in poverty nor the poverty rate was statistically different in 2011 from the prior year, Census said.
Meanwhile, real median household income decreased 1.5% to $50,054 in 2011, and a measure of income inequality increased on an annual basis for the first time since 1993, Census reported. Median income last year was down almost 9% from a recent peak in 1999, and is lower than when the recession began. “It is clear that more work remains to rebuild economic security for our middle class,” said Rebecca Blank, the U.S. Commerce secretary, in a statement. “The fact that our wealthiest continue to see economic gains while the middle class continues to struggle to recover from the Great Recession underscores the fact we must enact policies that help rebuild our economy not from the top down, but from the middle out.”
Those without health insurance decreased to 48.6 million in 2011 from 50 million in 2010. Expanding government health-insurance for kids, and enacting the Affordable Care Act have led to more coverage, Blank said. For example, there was a significant drop in the uninsured rate for people between 19 and 25, as the ACA allows children up to 26 to stay on a parent’s plan. ... Continue to read.
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