President Bush Pleased With Lowered Poverty Rate

Data show first U.S. poverty rate drop since election of George W. Bush:

The Census Bureau said that 36.5 million Americans, or 12.3 percent, were living in poverty last year, down from 12.6 percent in 2005.

The U.S. poverty rate dropped last year, the government reported Tuesday, in the first significant decline since President George W. Bush took office.

The Census Bureau said that 36.5 million Americans, or 12.3 percent, were living in poverty last year, down from 12.6 percent in 2005. The median household income was $48,200, a 4.1 percent increase from the previous year after adjusting for inflation.

But all is not quite as rosy as it might seem...

From the hardworking Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a mainstream centrist think tank, comes this analysis:

New Census data show that in 2006, both the number and the percentage of Americans who are uninsured hit their highest levels since 1999 …

Today’s figures also show that while the overall poverty rate declined slightly (from 12.6 percent to 12.3 percent) between 2005 and 2006, the decline was largely concentrated among the elderly. The poverty rates for children and for working age adults remained statistically unchanged as compared to 2005, and well above their levels in 2001, when the last recession hit bottom.

There are 73 million children in the United States.
• 39 percent — 28.4 million — live in low-income families.

Perhaps of greatest concern, the number of Americans without health insurance increased by 2.2 million in 2006, and the number of uninsured children jumped by more than 600,000. The steady progress of recent years in reducing the number of uninsured children stalled in 2005 and began to reverse in 2006.

Note: The federal poverty level is $20,000 annual income for a family of four. That's about £196 a week.