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Americans earn a little more in household income.
The median income of US households increased in 2017 to $ 61,372, the third consecutive year of growth, while the poverty rate fell to 12.3%, relatively unchanged from 2016.
Despite the 1.8% increase in median household income last year compared to 2016, when Americans earned $ 60,309, it was not as impressive as the growth of the previous two years. The median income, adjusted for inflation, is the point at which half of the households surveyed have an income lower than this number and the other half higher.
The new data also show the rate of Americans having health insurance – and more people are covered, according to the Census Bureau.
Nearly one million additional people enjoy a form of health insurance, mainly because of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act.
In 2015, about 9.1% of the population was without health insurance and this figure dropped to 8.8% in 2016 and remained relatively unchanged in 2017, where about 28.5 million people were born Were not covered.
In 2010, before the Affordable Care Act came into effect, 16.3% of the population did not have health insurance. Last year, the majority of insureds had private coverage, unlike that provided by the government.
"It's a big story here: over the past five years, the number of uninsured people has dropped significantly, but it is now at a low or stabilized level," said Mark Rank, a professor at the University of California. Washington in St. Louis studying poverty. "You can watch what the current administration is trying to do to show why."
He added that the latest figures highlight a "mixed story" in terms of economic progress for Americans. About 39.7 million people are in poverty.
"If you look at unemployment and overall wages, they have improved in recent years and, as a result, poverty has declined," said Rank. "But the reach of poverty is still quite broad and half of Americans will experience it – if we compare ourselves to other industrialized countries, we still have a very high amount."
The income, poverty and health insurance rates compiled by the census are used to assess the economic well-being of the nation and remain tools for legislators to make policy decisions.
The median household income in 2017 surpassed $ 61,000 for the first time, but with the Census Bureau redesigning its methodology in 2013, officials said last year's record-breaking record of n & # 39; 39, was not statistically different from 1999 or 2007.
The overall economy has also strengthened over the past decade since the Great Recession, which lasted from December 2007 to June 2009, and saw the loss of millions of full-time and permanent jobs. the stagnation of the wages of American workers.
This year, the national unemployment rate hovered around its lowest level in 18 years and stood at 3.9% in August.
H. Luke Shaefer, director of Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan, said the Obama administration has helped put policies in place that have eased the collapse of financial markets, including a stimulus package and expansion unemployment insurance. The economy has been steadily improving since 2014, when the median household income was $ 54,398, according to the census.
The effects of the Trump administration's tax law at the end of 2017 have been hailed by Republicans as a way to boost business and help raise wages. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., Said that a typical family would see a $ 2,059 tax reduction this year.
But Shaefer said it was still too early to say what kind of effect the tax cuts will have on workers' wages.
"We had a very bad recession and now we have a very long recovery," he added. "We have reached the bottom, and now we finally see a turning point."
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