Poverty among Children and Immigrants Increases; Number of Uninsured Declines

By the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights’ Jessica Agarwal

Poverty among children and immigrants in the United States significantly increased from 2006 to 2007, according to the Census Bureau’s annual report on income, earnings, and poverty, released on August 26.

Meanwhile, the overall poverty rate increased slightly, median income rose, and the number of people without health insurance declined by more than 1 million.

In just one year, the number of children who were poor increased by nearly 500,000, from 17.4 percent in 2006 to 18 percent in 2007. The poverty rate for immigrants increased from 15.2 percent in 2006 to 16.5 percent in 2007.

While the inflation-adjusted national median income increased by 1.3 percent between 2006 and 2007, Black households and Latino households still continue to have lower median incomes than White or Asian households.

At $33,916, blacks had the lowest median income in 2007, compared to $38,679 for Latinos, $54,920 for whites, and $66,103 for Asians.

The report also showed a continuing wage disparity between women and men, with women earning 78 percent of what men earned in 2007.

The poverty rate among Latinos increased from 20.6 percent in 2006 to 21.5 percent in 2007, while poverty rates for all other racial and ethnic groups stayed the same.

According to Gary Burtless, an economist at the Brookings Institution, the decline of the home-building industry due to the burst of the housing bubble and the mortgage crisis was partially at fault for the increasing poverty rate among Latinos.

The number of uninsured Americans fell from 47 million in 2006 to 45.7 million in 2007, in large part because more people are covered under federal and state programs such as Medicare. However, the number of people covered under private insurance declined.

Despite good news regarding higher incomes, as well as declining numbers of people who are uninsured, civil rights advocates warn that the new data does not reflect the current economic downturn.

“The data in this report refer to last year, when everything was different,” Jared Bernstein, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told The New York Times. “This year, we’re losing on a monthly basis, inflation is running at over 5 percent, and unemployment was last seen at 5.7 percent and rising.”

In addition, these statistics might not tell the whole – or correct – story. The country needs to “overhaul the way we measure poverty,” said Michael Laracy, coordinator for public policy at the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

The current poverty threshold for a family of four is $21,203, an amount that civil rights advocates say does not accurately reflect the current costs of meeting basic day-to-day needs, nor does it reflect the total income and resources that poor families receive.

Specifically, the current poverty measure omits such key expenses as medical costs, transportation to work, child care, and state and local taxes. Also, the corresponding income levels do not include many of the non-cash benefits on which low-income families rely, such as food stamps, housing assistance, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the Child Tax Credit.

The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) is supporting the Measuring Poverty in America Act of 2008, a bill that aims to modernize the federal poverty measure. LCCR, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the Center for American Progress Action Fund, and the Coalition on Human Needs are working together on the Half in Ten campaign to with a goal of reducing poverty by 50 percent in ten years.

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Go to the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights website.