September 30, 2024
The Census edition. There’s a lot to report with the Census Bureau in recent weeks and we want to walk you quickly through the numbers. The brief glimpse: bad news on poverty, good news on health care, good news on income.
The bad news: The Child Tax Credit (CTC), which lifted more than 5.3 million people out of poverty in 2021, only helped about 2.3 million out of poverty in 2023, a reduction of nearly 3 million people. That was because the 2021 Child Tax Credit was much larger ($3,000 - $3,600 per child in 2021; a maximum of $2,000 in 2023). And, perhaps most important, after the 2021 CTC expansion expired, the poorest families were no longer eligible at all, and many low-income families only received a partial credit.
The better news: the percentage of uninsured children nationwide declined from 7.5 percent in 2013 to 5.4% in 2023. And the percentage of uninsured working age adults dropped nationwide from 20.5 percent in 2013 to 11 percent in 2023.
Finally, there is good news on the income front. The Census Bureau reported a 4.0 percent increase in median household income – the first statistically significant increase since the first pre-pandemic year of 2019.
Below, see some of the highlights (and lowlights) of Census survey numbers and other related data – and join us in support of adequate funding to ensure high quality Census data.
You can share these numbers on Facebook and Twitter.