The following article by Rachel West, Katherine Gallagher Robbins and Melissa Boteach was posted on the Center for American Progress website September 6, 2018:
On September 12, the Census Bureau will release its annual data on income, poverty, and health insurance coverage in the United States. These data, collected from the Current Population Survey for calendar year 2017, are expected to show that the national poverty rate continued the downward trajectory it has followed since 2014, measured by both the official poverty measure and researchers’ preferred Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), which also counts tax credits and certain in-kind assistance as income. Yet despite this expected decrease, experts anticipate that the typical American family experienced only modest income gains in 2017—if any—and that health insurance coverage rates flatlined.
Although any decrease in the share of people facing poverty and hardship is good news, it is important to put that decrease in context. In the Trump economy, corporate profits are soaring in the aftermath of the recent tax law, while working families are being squeezed by stagnant wages and rising health care costs. The 2017 Census Bureau data will fail to capture the effects of recent policy changes—including the historically unpopular tax law, enacted in December 2017—as well as the Trump administration’s many ongoing threats to Americans’ financial security. These include proposed cuts to programs that help Americans meet a basic standard of living, as well as the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, whose confirmation would be devastating for working-class people, including those living in poverty. Indeed, any good news for working- and middle-class Americans is due in large part to the Trump administration’s failure to impose much of its damaging policy agenda. Center for American Progress analysis showed that if just three of Trump’s proposed budget cuts had been in place in 2015, 2.3 million more Americans would have been in poverty.
This column sets the stage for the Census Bureau’s data release—and provides timely information for fall policy debates—by detailing how working families are faring in the Trump economy, the attack on access to health care, and the continuing assault on important supports that families need to make ends meet.