news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050830/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/census_poverty
Click Here The percentage of people without health insurance did not change. Overall, there were 37 million people living in poverty, up 11 million p eople from 2003. Asians were the only ethnic group to show a decline in poverty from 11. The number of people without health insurance grew from 45 million to 45. At the same time, the number of people with health insurance coverage grew by 2 million last year. Charles Nelson, an assistant division chief at the Census Bureau, said th e percentage of uninsured remained steady because of an "increase in gov ernment coverage, notably Medicaid and the state children's health insur ance program, that offset a decline in employment-based coverage." The median household income, meanwhile, stood at $44,389, unchanged from 2003. Among racial and ethnic groups blacks had the lowest median income and Asians the highest. Median income refers to the point at which half of households earn more and half earn less. Regionally, income declined only in the Midwest, down 28 percent to $44, 657. The South was the poorest region and the Northeast and the West had the highest median incomes. The increase in poverty came despite strong economic growth, which helped create 22 million jobs last year. "I guess what happened last year was kind of similar to what happened in the early 1990s where you had a recession that was officially over and t hen you had several years after that of rising poverty," Nelson said. They don't re flect any improvements in the economy in 2005." Tim Smeeding, an economics professor at the Maxwell School of Syracuse Un iversity, says the nation has experienced a shift from earnings income t o capital income and capital gains, which aren't reflected in the Census Bureau's latest numbers. "Most of that growth in the economy over the last couple of years has gon e to higher income people and has taken the form of capital income int erest, rents, dividends," Smeeding said. The poverty threshold differs by the size and makeup of a household. For instance, a family of four with two children was considered living in po verty if income was $19,157 or less. The estimates on poverty, uninsured and income are based on supplements t o the bureau's Current Population Survey, and are conducted over three m onths, beginning in February, at about 100,000 households nationwide.
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