Poverty, Uninsurance Rates Rose in U.S., IL
By Margaret Lyons in News on Aug 27, 2004 4:51PM
The Census Bureau released a report today that includes statistics on poverty and medical insurance, and the findings are pretty grim: the numbers of Americans living in poverty and without medical insurance both rose last year, each by more than 1 million.
According to the report, 35.9 million Americans lived in poverty in 2003, up 1.3 million, and 45 million were uninsured, up 1.5 million. Despite these numbers, 243.3 million Americans had health insurance, up 1 million for a record high.
Illinoiss median household income of $45,607 is above the national average of $43,318, but its still a decrease from 2002. The poverty rate in Illinois also increased to 11.8 percent, but stayed below the national average of 12.2 percent. So we might be getting poorer, but its pretty slow-moving. Were also doing slightly better than the national average in terms of medical coverage: 14.3 percent (roughly 1.8 million people) of Illinois residents are uninsured, compared to 15.6 percent of Americans in general.
Hey, Barack? Alan? This should look like the beginning of a to do list.