Uninsured Numbers Drop as Poverty Rate Holds Steady

The number of people without health insurance dropped last year by 8.8 million, to a total of 33 million, but there was no statistically significant change in income for the typical American household, the Obama administration said Wednesday.

Median household income in the United States was $53,660 last year, the Census Bureau reported.

In addition, it said, there was no meaningful change in the official poverty rate — 14.8 percent in 2014. About 46.7 million people were in poverty, the bureau said.

This was the fourth consecutive year in which the number of people in poverty was not statistically different from the official estimate for the prior year.

In its annual report on income, poverty and health insurance coverage, the Census Bureau said that the percentage of people without insurance was 10.4 percent last year, down from 13.3 percent in 2013. Much of the change was attributable to changes made by the Affordable Care Act, officials said.

In the last two years, the Obama administration has issued a steady stream of upbeat reports showing a big expansion of coverage and a sharp reduction in the number of uninsured. To support its claims, the administration has cited estimates by the Urban Institute, the RAND Corporation, the Gallup organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among others.

None of those estimates were as reliable or authoritative as the census data.

The lack of any significant change in median household income, after adjustment for inflation, was somewhat surprising to experts, who had expected to see some modest growth in income because of improvements in the economy last year.

Many households have still not regained the purchasing power they had before the recession that began in December 2007. Median household income was 6.5 percent lower last year than in 2007, the bureau said. The number of households with income above the median is the same as the number below it.

More From The New York Times: