Blog

Sorry, Census. Poverty Really Did Increase in 2009.

Share

Shawn FremstadBetween 2008 and 2009, unemployment increased from 5.8 percent to 9.3 percent, the largest one-year increase on record (which goes back to 1948). Over the same period, the number of Americans without health insurance coverage rose by more than four million — from 46.3 million in 2008 to 50.7 million in 2009 — and low-income people lost insurance at a greater rate than Americans overall. Thus, it isn’t surprising that the Census Bureau’s official poverty estimates show that the number of people who were impoverished in 2009 increased by 3.74 million, and the poverty rate increased from 13.2 percent in 2008 to 14.3 percent in 2009.

More surprising is an “alternative” poverty estimate Census quietly released earlier this month. This estimate, highlighted [Wednesday] in a New York Times editorial, shows no increase in poverty between 2008 and 2009. Given the record increase in unemployment and huge decline in health insurance coverage, especially among low-income people, could this alternative estimate showing no increase in poverty really be correct? [See CEPR.net]