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Fewer Americans live in poverty but, for the first time in years, more and more of them do not have health insurance.
About 27.5 million people, or 8.5% of the population, lacked health insurance for the whole of 2018, against 7.9% the previous year, announced Tuesday the Census Bureau. This was the first increase since the Affordable Care Act came into effect in 2014, and experts said it was at least partly a result of the Trump administration's efforts to undermine this law. .
The growth in the ranks of the uninsured was particularly striking because the economy was doing well. The same report showed that the share of Americans living in poverty had fallen to 11.8%, the lowest level since 2001. The median household income is $ 63,200, almost the same amount as the previous year after adjustment for inflation, but significantly higher than this. that it was during the Great Recession.
"In a period of continued economic growth, continued growth in employment, you certainly hope you will not back down in insurance coverage," he said. Sharon Parrott, Senior Vice President of the Liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
But there was good news in the report of the Census Bureau for the White House. The recovery, which has lasted for a decade, finally brings income gains to middle-class and low-income families. After decades of growing inequality, recent wage gains have been most significant for people at the bottom of the earnings ladder, said Michael R. Strain, economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
"You see improved employment outcomes for people with disabilities. You see improved employment outcomes for people who were previously incarcerated, "said Strain. "These workers who are potentially more vulnerable, you see that the recovery reaches them."
Democrats, however, are likely to highlight the evidence that earnings gains have slowed in the last few years of President Barack Obama. Median income increased by 5.1% in 2015 and 3.1% in 2016.
And while Tuesday's report showed the benefits of the longest economic expansion ever, it also showed the limits of that growth. The median household income is only moderately higher than at the beginning of the recession at the end of 2007 and has hardly changed since the bursting of the Internet bubble in 2000.
Democrats and Republicans have benefited from the sentiment of many voters that the economy did not work for them.
"These are two solid economic cycles, either to stay in place or to come out of a hole," he said. Arloc Sherman, senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "You can see why people would be eager to make real progress."
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