Maryland reported the highest median household income in the country in 2015, but income growth lagged behind the national rate, according to new survey data released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau. He added, “The federal government invests billions of dollars each year in programs to help low-income Americans-but more than 43 million people continue to live in poverty”. The ACS estimates are based on a random sample of about 3 percent of USA households.
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“If you had asked me yesterday, I would have said I was expecting a decline [in poverty rates] of about half a percentage point”, he said.
The proportion of Americans in poverty also fell past year, to 13.5 percent from almost 14.8 percent. This means that in 2015, half of all US -based households made more than $56,516 and half made less than that figure. In contrast to Trump’s bleak assessment of US fiscal health, the figures released Tuesday by the Census Bureau offer a wide swath of evidence to suggest that the slow-simmering recovery from the Great Recession has at last reached middle- and lower-income Americans.
Americans at all levels of the income ladder saw their financial lives improve previous year. The 2015 median in Butler was $68,848 (up 13.2 percent) and in Fayette was $40,945 (up 11.9 percent).
Several states, including Pennsylvania, Indiana and Alaska, expanded their Medicaid programs past year, taking advantage of increased federal funding under the Affordable Care Act. It also is still 2.4 percent below the peak of $57,909 reached in 1999. “The real wages for our workers have not been raised for eighteen years”, Donald Trump said in June.
USA median household income rose 5.2% in 2015 to $56,516, but income remains below the 2007 average, the article said.
“Americans are also likely benefiting from an increase in middle-income jobs”.
But now, all races and ethnicities are seeing increases in income and reductions in poverty, according to the White House. In contrast, the top 20 percent of American households by income received a 5.3 percent boost to their incomes in the same five years on average, with the top 5 percent of households experiencing even bigger gains: 8.3 percent. “That probably means that annual earnings for the highest paid workers probably went up the most as well, and 2015 is going to be more unequal than 2014”. However, the local poverty rate is inflated by a large student population.
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The Census report also showed that the number of uninsured Americans continued to drop, as people take advantage of President Obama’s health care law.
