In all, 101,277 fewer Illinoisans, including 34,402 fewer children, lived in poverty past year compared to 2014.
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The reports revealed stunning positive news about the state of the American economy: a record-setting 5.2 percent increase in median household income from 2014 to 2015, median income at its highest point since before the Great Recession, a drop in the official poverty rate of 1.2 percentage points, more than 3.5 million Americans lifted out of poverty, a 1.3 percentage point drop in the uninsured rate, and roughly 4 million fewer uninsured Americans.
Monmouth County’s poverty rate fell to 7.4 percent in 2015, down from 8.2 percent the year before. In Ottawa county, the median household income increased 1.1 percent to $61,012.
In Cleveland, the median income rose to $28,831, up from $24,701 in 2014.
“It’s not going to show up immediately, but over time the state budget situation, the stalemate, the failure to fund vital programs, is gonna have a very significant impact on many things that would contribute to an increase in the poverty level in our state’s future”, he said. “It wasn’t really until the 2015 and 2016 summer seasons that it got back on track”.
In North Carolina, that peak happened in 2008, when the state’s median household income hit $51,243, adjusted for inflation. The previous year it was slightly better – 84.2 percent. Income in the United States saw its biggest year-over-year spike since 1968, when those stats were first kept. Maryland and D.C. have the highest median household incomes at $75,847 and $75,628, respectively.
Middle class Americans received a big raise in 2015.
In 2015, the uninsured rate in Kentucky was 6 percent, a decrease from the 2014 rate of 8.5 percent and the 2013 rate of 14.3 percent.
New Jersey’s poverty decline was modest, but the state still ranks among the states with the lowest poverty rate.
In that same one-year window, Wyoming’s poverty rate for kids under 5 increased from 22.2 percent to 25.3 percent, the data shows. This is compared to a high of 29.4 percent in 2012. No state saw an increase in poverty.
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Racial disparities, however, persist in IL when it comes to median household income, according to the data. No states had a declining household income. The lowest is MS – at $40,593, it was statistically unchanged from 2014’s rate.
