US Poverty Rate 2018: What The Latest Numbers Show About The Economy

The 2018 U.S. poverty rate is at its lowest point since 2001 and middle-class income is at an all-time high, but a growing number of Americans are without health insurance, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday.

Census’ Income and Poverty: 2018 report found median household income at $63,200, about the same as in 2017, with real earnings for men working full-time, year-round up 3.4% to $55,300 and for women up 3.3% to $45,100.

The number of full-time employees working year-round increased by 2.3 million from 2017 to 2018.

Middle-class Americans now earn more in inflation-adjusted terms than they did in 1999. Women, however, were still earning less than 82 percent of their male counterparts.

Asians had the highest median income at $87,200, followed by whites, $70,000, Hispanics, $51,500, and African-Americans, $41,400.

The drop in people with health insurance is an apparent side effect of the Trump administration's efforts to gut the Affordable Care Act, a/k/a Obamacare. The law, which took effect in 2010, saw the uninsured rate cut in half to 8 percent in 2017. Last year, it rose to 8.5 percent, with an additional 1.9 million people lacking coverage. The issue is expected to be highlighted during the 2020 presidential campaign.

The official poverty rate dipped to 11.8% last year, the lowest point since 2001 when it was 11.7% and nearly half of what it was in 1959 as more Americans benefited from the prolonged economic upswing since the Great Recession. Some 38 million Americans were mired in poverty.

Businesses have been hiring minority and low-skilled workers at a brisk rate, Labor Department Statistics indicate.

The poverty rate for African-Americans was 20.8%. followed by 17.6% of Hispanics, 10.1% of Asians and 8.1% of whites. The highest poverty rate by age was among those less than 18 years of age (16.2%), followed by 10.7% of those ages 18 to 64 and 9.7% of seniors. Nearly 25% of households headed by women with no spouse lived in poverty, with Hispanic women bearing the brunt.

The poorest states in the United States were West Virginia ($43,469 per capita), Arkansas ($45,869), Louisiana ($46,145) New Mexico ($46,744) and Alabama ($48,123).