Revenues are rising, poverty is down – but Americans should do better

The government released Wednesday a series of highly anticipated economic statistics, which let us know what American households actually do. The answer? While families saw their incomes rise slightly and nearly a million people crossed the poverty line, the effects were not as dramatic as expected, given the strength of the US economy.

The figures come from a huge annual Census Bureau survey that focuses on earnings, poverty and health insurance.

The Census Bureau found that households in the middle of the income scale saw their total revenues in 2017 increase by 1.8% to $ 61,400, after adjusting for inflation.

This marks the third consecutive year with an increase, but it is lower not only to the gain of 3.2% recorded in 2016, but also to the overall growth of the economy, which has been greater than 2%.

It also means that today's median household is no better than 2007 or 1999, once you have adjusted the changes in the way this survey was conducted over time.

Inequality is one of the reasons for the slowdown, with higher-income families recording greater gains in 2017 than their peers in the middle class. But inflation also played a role, with a jump in oil prices and a general recovery in the inflation rate in 2017, which nibbled wages and maintained real profits.

Further down the income ladder, the story is also mixed.

In contrast, the overall poverty rate fell from 12.7% to 12.3%, which means that in 2017, nearly 1 million Americans lived in poverty.

But that means there are about 40 million Americans in poverty, a third of whom are under the age of 18.

In addition, an increasing share of the poor Americans is not even about to flee, which you can see by looking at the number of people earning less than half of basic wages, less than $ 12,500 a year. In 1975, about a third of poor families earned less than that; today, it is almost half.

Finally, the census analysis revealed that recent gains in health insurance coverage across the country had stopped last year.

Between 2013 and 2016, the number of uninsured Americans went from 13.3% to 8.8%, but it did not change in 2017.

In all, 2017 seems like a decent but not spectacular year for American families, at a time when our declining unemployment rate and growing economy could make the spectacular possible.

Evan Horowitz explores the data to find information that illustrates the problems facing Massachusetts and the United States. You can contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeHorowitz.