Poverty, Income, Health Insurance Key Points

From the Coalition on Human Needs (http://www.chn.org):

3.5 million fewer people were poor in 2015 than in 2014 (1 million fewer poor children among them). That’s a reduction from 14.8 percent poor in 2014 to 13.5 percent in 2015. Good news.

There is evidence that long-awaited economic growth was starting to reach more people, with median household income rising 5.2 percent – to $56,500 (up from $53,700).

And the number of uninsured declined by 1.3 percentage points, down to 9.1 percent, the lowest level ever. Much of that is attributable to the Affordable Care Act. The number of uninsured fell by 4 million from 2014 to 2015, and by 12.8 million from 2013 to 2015.

There are still 43 million poor people in America, and that is too many. But the findings of the Supplemental Poverty Measure point to the importance of key programs like Social Security, tax credits, SNAP, and housing assistance, among others, in reducing poverty.

For example:

26.6 million people were lifted out of poverty by Social Security.
More than 9 million people were lifted out of poverty by low-income (refundable) tax credits – more than 4.8 million children among them.
SNAP raised nearly 4.6 million out of poverty (including 2 million children).
Housing subsidies took more than 2.5 million out of poverty (including 860,000 children).

Racial/ethnic disparities remain, and are troubling. But it is worth noting that the percentage point reductions in poverty were greater for African Americans and Hispanics/Latinos than for whites. (The percentage growth in median income was greatest for Hispanics and less for African Americans and Asians.) See this table from the Council of Economic Advisers:

poverty-stats