Nearly one in five DC residents lives in poverty, or on less than $23,050 for a family of four, according to new data released today from the Census Bureau. The new findings, which come from data best used to describe national trends, show that DC’s poverty rate did not change by a statistically significant margin.
More authoritative data on DC’s poverty and income trends will be released Thursday from the Census Bureau. The District’s Dime will report on those 
figures later this week.
The data also show that the income of the typical DC household did not change by a statistically significant margin. Meanwhile DC continues to make significant progress in providing health care coverage to uninsured residents in DC. Just 9 percent of non-elderly residents were uninsured in 2011 and 2012, half the national average. DC’s rate of uninsured children is the second lowest among states.
The Census Bureau reports that 19.1 percent of DC residents, or 119,000 people, lived below the poverty line in 2011 and 2012[1]. This is not different by a significant margin from the 18.4 percent poverty rate in 2009 and 2010, however, because the data has a large margin of error for small jurisdictions like DC. Nevertheless, poverty levels remain high in DC in the wake of the recession, a sign that the recovery the city has experienced over the last several years is not reaching all residents.
This is consistent with findings that unemployment levels remain far higher than at the start of the recession for some groups of DC residents, noted in a recent report from DCFPI. Jobless rates are especially high among single parents, low-wage workers, those without a college degree and African-American workers.
Median income in DC — the income of the household in the middle of the income distribution — was $60,826 in 2011-2012. This was not different by a statistically significant amount from the median income in 2009-2010.
The new census data also show that DC continues to make significant progress in covering the uninsured as a result of the health care expansion under the Affordable Care Act. About 49,800 non-elderly residents’or 9 percent– are uninsured, a decrease of 24,000 since the height of the recession in 2009-2010. The share of DC children without insurance is just 3 percent, the second lowest rate of uninsured children among states.
The increases in insurance coverage may be partially explained by significant growth in Medicaid. Medicaid covers just over a quarter of all non-elderly residents in the District, up from about 20 percent points since before the recession in 2006-2007. The increase in Medicaid coverage resulted from income declines during the recession that made more residents eligible, but also the District’s expansion of eligibility under health reform. Over the same time period, Medicaid coverage for District children remained steady at about 50 percent of all children.
The share of non-elderly District residents receiving health insurance through their employer has fell from 62 percent to 57 percent during the recession, but has remained stable since 2009-2010. The number of children receiving employer-sponsored children also remained unchanged during this time frame.
Stay tuned to the District’s Dime on Thursday when we will analyze the findings from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, the more authoritative data source for poverty and income trends at the state level.
