The U.S. Census Bureau has just released income, poverty, and health insurance coverage estimates for 2011. With respect to poverty, the overall news is better than it has been: for the first time in four years, neither the official poverty rate (15%) nor the number of people living in poverty were statistically different from one year to the next (2010-2011).
For children, the poverty rate was 21.9%, while only 8.7% of people aged 65 and older faced poverty. For non-Hispanic whites, the rate was 9.8%, which was lower than the rates for any other racial groups. The racial group with the highest poverty rate was African-Americans (27.6%); that group’s poverty rate was not statistically different from the 2010 estimate. Among Hispanics, the poverty rate actually declined—from 26.5% in 2010 to 25.3% in 2011, while the actual number of Hispanics living in poverty was not statistically different from one year to the next.
Gender differences were present, and worsened with age. In 2011, 13.6 of males and 16.3 % of females lived in poverty. For men, this represented a decrease of almost 3% over 2010, while the female rate did not show a significant change during that period. When age was examined, the gender differences were more pronounced—women aged 65 and older had a 10.7% poverty rate, while the rate for men in this age cohort was 6.2%. As a whole, none of the three age groups (children, adults, and seniors) experienced a statistically significant change in either the number living in poverty or the poverty rate.
