U.S. - Poverty dropped but household incomes didn’t rise, Census Bureau says

By Carol Morello

The nation’s poverty rate dipped slightly last year as more Americans shifted from part-time work to full-time jobs, but wages barely kept up with inflation so there was no significant change to incomes, according to Census Bureau statistics released Tuesday.

The poverty rate in 2013 was 14.5 percent, down from 15 percent in 2012. That was the first decline in the rate since 2006, a year before the recession began. However, the number of people living at or below the poverty line, about 45 million, did not budge. The decline in the rate at a time of unchanging raw numbers was attributed to population growth.

One in five children in the country are living in poverty, the census said. The 20 percent poverty rate for children represented a drop of 2 percentage points from 2012.

Mississippi registered the highest level of poverty in the country, at 22.5 percent.

Census economists said median household income in the U.S. last year was just under $52,000, roughly where it was in 2012 when the figures are adjusted for inflation. That figure is 8 percent lower than it was in 2007, the last full year of pre-recession economic well-being, and 11 percent below what it was in 2000.

Overall, the Census Bureau said, about 2.8 million more people had full-time, year-round jobs in 2013. Since 2010, the census has detected a gradual shift from part-time to full-time jobs, but the trend seemed to accelerate last year, economists said.

“The good news is that more people are working full time,” said Sheldon Danziger, president of the Russell Sage Foundation, a New York-based social research group. “The bad news is, for the typical worker, wages are just keeping up with inflation.”