Today the U. S. Census Bureau released 2009 data compiled from information collected in the 2010 Current Population Survey (CPS) Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASES) related to national and limited state figures on income, poverty, and health insurance coverage. A press release from the Census Bureau includes key findings from the Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage: 2009 report including the finding that 43.6 million people, or 14.3% of the population, were living in poverty in 2009.
National summary findings from the compiled data include:
- The poverty rate in 2009 was the highest since 1994, but was 8.1 percentage points lower than the poverty rate in 1959, the first year for which poverty estimates are available. The number of people in poverty in 2009 is the largest number in the 51 years for which poverty estimates are available.
- In 2009, the family poverty rate and the number of families in poverty were 11.1 percent and 8.8 million, respectively, up from 10.3 percent and 8.1 million in 2008.
- The poverty rate and the number in poverty increased across all types of families: married-couple families (5.8 percent and 3.4 million in 2009 from 5.5 percent and 3.3 million in 2008); female-householder-with-no-husband-present families (29.9 percent and 4.4 million in 2009 from 28.7 percent and 4.2 million in 2008) and for male-householder-no-wife-present families (16.9 percent and 942,000 in 2009 from 13.8 percent and 723,000 in 2008).
- For children younger than 18, both the poverty rate (from 19.0 percent in 2008 to 20.7 percent in 2009) and the number of individuals in poverty (14.1 million in 2008 to 15.5 million in 2009) increased.
- The number of people with health insurance decreased from 255.1 million in 2008 to 253.6 million in 2009. Since 1987, the first year that comparable health insurance data were collected, this is the first year that the number of people with health insurance has decreased.
- In 2009, 10.0 percent (7.5 million) of children under 18 were without health insurance. Neither estimate is significantly different from the corresponding 2008 estimate.
- The uninsured rate for children in poverty (15.1 percent) was greater than the rate for all children.
