Census Reports: Poverty Rates Drops and Household Income Increases

摘要

On September 13, the U.S. Census Bureau released two new annual reports: Income and Poverty in the United States: 2015 and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2015. According to the reports, the U.S. has experienced the largest decline in poverty rates in the last 16 years, with 13.5 percent of Americans (or 43.1 million people) living in poverty in 2015, compared to 14.8 percent in 2014. This decline coincides with the nation's continued decrease in the number of people without health insurance coverage. In 2015, the percent of people without health insurance declined to 9.1 percent of the population (29 million people) from 10.4 percent (or 33 million people) in 2014. This change in coverage is largely attributed to the insurance-related provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Additionally, last year, the real median household income in the U.S. was $56,516, a 5.2 percent increase in real terms from 2014. This marks the first annual increase in median household incomes since 2007, right before the most recent recession. The Office of Management and Budget defined the poverty threshold level as less than $24,257 for a family of four in 2015.