Fw: Poverty Rate Up 3rd Year In a Row and More Also Lack Health Coverage

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Poverty is severely detrimental to one's health!!! NG

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Jim

Jim

Friday, August 27, 2004 5:50 PM

Poverty Rate Up 3rd Year In a Row and More Also Lack Health Coverage

 

washingtonpost.com

 

Poverty Rate Up 3rd Year In a Row

More Also Lack Health Coverage

 

By Ceci Connolly and Griff Witte

Washington Post Staff Writers

Friday, August 27, 2004; Page A01

 

The number of Americans living in poverty or lacking health insurance rose for

the third straight year in 2003, the Census Bureau announced yesterday,

reflecting a job market that failed to match otherwise strong economic growth.

 

Overall, the median household income remained stagnant at $43,318, while the

national poverty rate rose to 12.5 percent -- 35.9 million people -- last year,

from 12.1 percent in 2002. Hit hardest were women, who for the first time since

1999 saw their earnings decline, and children. By the end of 2003, 12.9 million

children lived in poverty.

 

As expected, the number of people without health insurance grew last year, to 45

million -- an increase to 15.6 percent from 15.2 percent. White adults,

primarily in the South, accounted for most of the increase. The proportion of

people receiving health insurance through an employer fell to 60.4 percent, the

lowest level in a decade, from 61.3 percent.

 

The census report provided hard numbers to anecdotal evidence that the recent

recovery has missed certain regions and segments of the population. An

additional 1.3 million Americans fell below the poverty line in 2003, as incomes

dipped for the poorest 20 percent of the population. An additional 1.4 million

became newly uninsured.

 

" This recovery has failed to reach those in the bottom half, " said Jared

Bernstein, a senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute.

 

As President Bush prepared to head to New York for the Republican National

Convention, yesterday's data gave Democrats an opening for picking at his

perceived weakness on traditional bread-and-butter issues.

 

" While George Bush tries to convince America's families that we're turning the

corner, slogans and empty rhetoric can't hide the real story, " said Sen. John F.

Kerry (Mass.), the Democratic presidential nominee. " Under George Bush's watch,

America's families are falling further behind. "

 

Bush, campaigning in New Mexico, had no comment. Commerce Secretary Donald L.

Evans said the census data looked " backward in time at an economy that was

substantially weaker " than it is today. He predicted that the numbers will

improve as Bush " continues to press extremely hard to create the right

conditions and business climate " for job growth and broader health coverage.

 

Yet the census report stood in sharp contrast to an economy and a stock market

that grew briskly in 2003, especially in the second half of the year. " The

impact of a persistent jobless recovery is all over these results, " Bernstein

said.

 

With fewer people working and fewer small businesses offering health coverage,

the uninsured figure is likely to remain high until the unemployment rate drops

to about 4 percent, said Paul Fronstin, a senior research associate at the

Employee Benefit Research Institute.

 

" It's not just about how many people have jobs, but it's about the kind of jobs

they have, " he said. " Even though people are employed, they are less likely to

have access to coverage. "

 

In this region, more people were without health coverage in 2003 than in 2002.

In Virginia, the uninsured rate rose to 13.3 percent from 12.2 percent; in both

Maryland and the District, it rose to 13.6 percent from 12.8 percent.

 

The national poverty rate declined from 1993 to 2000, when it reached a low of

11.3 percent. In the next three years, 4.3 million more people fell below the

poverty line, and the median household income dropped by more than $1,500 in

inflation-adjusted terms.

 

Locally, poverty rates rose in Virginia to 10 percent from 8.9 percent, and in

Maryland to 8 percent from 7.3 percent, according to the Census Bureau's

two-year averaging. In the District, it declined 0.7 percent, but, at 16.9

percent, it remained higher than the national average.

 

The poverty line is not a single, consistent number; it varies with time and

family size. In 2003, the average poverty line for an individual was $9,393. For

a family of four, it was $18,810. Despite the recent increase in poverty rates,

the rates remained lower than the average for both the 1980s and the 1990s.

 

Economic issues -- including the availability and affordability of health

insurance -- remain top concerns among voters. In several recent Washington Post

and Gallup surveys, voters gave the president no better than a 51 percent

approval rating on his handling of the economy, and in a head-to-head matchup

with Kerry on economic matters, Bush trailed 41 percent to his challenger's 52

percent.

 

Yesterday's report showed that several swing states saw an increase in the

poverty rate, the percentage of uninsured or both -- including Iowa, Michigan,

Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington,

West Virginia and Wisconsin.

 

" It's definitely not the news that the president was hoping for, " said Rea S.

Hederman Jr., senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.

 

Children made up an especially large segment of the newly impoverished,

accounting for more than half of the overall increase as 733,000 more youngsters

slipped below the poverty line. Similarly, the number of families in poverty

headed by a single mother jumped 1.5 percent, to 3.9 million.

 

Sheldon H. Danziger, co-director of the National Poverty Center at the

University of Michigan, said the rise in poverty represents fallout from the

1996 Welfare Reform Act. Because the new policy shifted government benefits to

reward those who work, single mothers who were employed received additional

assistance when jobs were plentiful but are struggling now that the economy has

1.2 million fewer jobs.

 

" They did fine when the economy was booming, and even in the early part of the

recession, " he said. " But now there's been an increase in the number of women

who have no work and no welfare. "

 

Hederman disagreed with Danziger, noting that the child poverty rate, although

up for the year at 17.6 percent, is still well below the 20.5 percent it hit in

1996.

 

" You've seen a lot of people who left poverty and who haven't returned back to

it even after the economic downturn, " he said.

 

Single mothers were not helped by the fact that the earnings of women overall

suffered, declining by 0.6 percent. Women made 76 cents for every dollar earned

by men in 2003, compared with 77 cents in 2002. Others who felt the sting

included Hispanics, whose median income dropped 2.6 percent last year.

 

Viewing the increase in poverty by race, Asian Americans were hit hardest, but

census officials said the rise appeared to be a statistical anomaly resulting

from a small sample size.

 

Since 2000, the number of uninsured Americans has grown by 5.2 million people,

or 13 percent.

 

" The latest data indicate that loss of insurance is of particular concern for

middle-income and low-wage workers, " said Karen Davis, president of the

nonpartisan Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation that studies health and

social policy trends.

 

More Americans were enrolled in government health programs such as Medicaid and

Medicare than at any time in the past two decades. Last year, 26.6 percent of

the population was covered by government health insurance, the highest

percentage since 1995.

 

The State Children's Health Insurance Program appeared to be the leading reason

the number of youngsters without coverage did not rise, even though millions

more fell into poverty.

 

At the libertarian Cato Institute, Michael Cannon, the director of health

studies, attributed the rise in uninsured to government regulation. Health and

Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson said it was the Senate's fault, even

though Republicans control both houses of Congress.

 

" The big failure is not what is happening in the administration. We are doing

everything we can, " he said in a conference call. " Individuals in the United

States Senate have failed to adopt the president's proposals dealing with health

care. "

 

Proposals to cap malpractice awards, to provide tax credits for individuals

purchasing insurance and to create small-business insurance purchasing pools

" show a president that is leading and a Congress that is not, " he said.

 

The Census Bureau normally releases its income, poverty and health insurance

figures in September. It moved the release date up a month to make it coincide

with the release of a separate set of data. Democrats have charged that the

timing is suspicious, given that many people take vacations in August and could

miss the bad news.

 

Senior polling analyst Christopher Mustie contributed to this report.

 

© 2004 The Washington Post Company