Every year, the old mainstream media discovers how many Americans are living in poverty and are without health insurance. This is made possible by the hard work of people at the U.S. Census Bureau, who for decades have been gathering data and producing a report on poverty in America.
The actual title of the report is: “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2006 report,” which can be found at http://www.census.gov/prod/2007pubs/p60-233.pdf.
The headlines produced by the 2006 report are interesting:
The most accurate headline came from, of all places, the People’s Daily in China “U.S. poverty rate continued to drop in 2006”.
The report contains historical data that reaches back a generation. In 1972, 11.9% of Americans lived in poverty. In addition, 33.3% of blacks lived in poverty, as did 22.8% of Hispanics. Also that year, women earned 58 cents for every $1.00 earned by men.
Fast forward to 2006: 12.3% of Americans lived in poverty. Black poverty was 24.2% and Hispanic poverty was 20.6%. Women in America earned 77 cents for every dollar earned by men.
But 1972 was a very long time ago and the American economy has changed a great deal, as has our society. We should look at some more recent numbers. Why not look at the sixth year of the Clinton administration, 1998, as compared to the sixth year of the Bush administration, 2006?
The overall poverty rate in 1998 was 12.7%. Black poverty was 26.1% and the Hispanic rate was 25.6%. Women earned 73 cents for every dollar earned by a man.
What about health insurance? The health insurance issue is recent, and the Census Bureau has only kept statistics since 1999. As a result, every time there is a hue and cry in the media on this issue, the discussion is about two years of a Bill Clinton term and six years of a George Bush term.
It is the perfect way to attack George Bush because the only statistics on the issue from the Census Bureau are weighted 75% towards his administration. The percentages of uninsured range from a low of 13.7% in 2000 to a high of 15.8% in 2006.
It would appear that government is making an effort to affect this situation. From the data, the percentage of Americans covered by government sponsored health insurance has reached a high of 27.3% in 2005 and 27% in 2006. The increase has been in Medicaid.
But the children! Children without health insurance coverage must be the result of governmental inaction. The data does not show that. 2004 and 2005 had the lowest percentages of uninsured children of the eight years recorded. Last year is high butstill less than that in 1999. Government has stepped up, with a record 29.8 percent of children covered by a government-sponsored plan.
What does it all mean? The historical data provides perspective on the 2006 numbers.
I would like to see these bits of information in headlines. I would also like to see Bush Administration spokespeople shouting them from every “bully pulpit” they have. I hate getting my news from the People’s Daily.
Chuck Simmins publishes America’s North Shore Journal, http://northshorejournal.org, and compiles the Terrorist Death Watch, http://terroristdeathwatch.com.
