2009 Census Bureau report on income, poverty and access to health care
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Dec 1, 2009 Posted by Judy Ferro
Median income (half of households above, and half below; measured in inflation-adjusted 2008 dollars)
Dec 1992--$46,603
Dec. 2000--$52,500
Dec. 2008--$50,303
By presidential terms (comparison of 8-yr terms):
Bush W: -4.2%
Clinton: +14%
Reagan: +8.1%
Nixon/Ford: +3.9%
Poverty
Dec 1992--38 million
Dec 2000--31.6 million (11.3%) living in poverty (decline of 16.9%)
Dec 2008--39.8 million (13.2%) (the largest number in absolute terms since 1960.) An increase of 26.1 per cent in total number. (Over two-thirds of that increase occurred before the economic collapse of 2008.)
Children in poverty
Dec 2008--14.1 million (19%) (increase of more than 21 %)
Access to health care
Dec 1992--38.6 million
Dec 2000--38.4 million uninsured Americans
Dec 2008--46.3 million, an increase of nearly 20.6 per cent.
Dec 2000--13.7 % of Americans were uninsured
Dec 2008--15.4 %
Dec 2000: 64.2 % received health insurance through their employer
Dec 2008--58.5%
So the summary page on the economic experience of average Americans under the past two presidents would look like this:
Under Clinton, the median income increased 14 per cent. Under Bush it declined 4.2 per cent.
Under Clinton the total number of Americans in poverty declined 16.9 per cent; under Bush it increased 26.1 per cent.
Under Clinton the number of children in poverty declined 24.2 per cent; under Bush it increased by 21.4 per cent.
Under Clinton, the number of Americans without health insurance, remained essentially even (down six-tenths of one per cent); under Bush it increased by 20.6 per cent.
Adding Ronald Reagan's record to the comparison fills in the picture from another angle.
Under Reagan, the median income grew, in contrast to both Bush the younger and Bush the elder. (The median income declined 3.2 per cent during the elder Bush's single term.) When Reagan was done, the median income stood at $47, 614 (again in constant 2008 dollars), 8.1 per cent higher than when Jimmy Carter left office in 1980.
But despite that income growth, both overall and childhood poverty were higher when Reagan rode off into the sunset than when he arrived. The number of poor Americans increased from 29.3 million in 1980 to 31.7 million in 1988, an increase of 8.4 per cent. The number of children in poverty trended up from 11.5 million when Carter left to 12.5 million when Reagan stepped down, a comparable increase of 7.9 per cent. The total share of Americans in poverty didn't change over Reagan's eight years (at 13 per cent), but the share of children in poverty actually increased (from 18.3 to 19.5 per cent) despite the median income gains.
The past rarely settles debates about the future.
Obama isn't replicating the Clinton economic strategy (which increased federal spending in areas like education and research much more modestly, and placed greater emphasis on deficit reduction-to the point of increasing taxes in his first term).
If tax cuts are truly the best means to stimulate broadly shared prosperity, why did the Bush years yield such disastrous results for American families on these core measures of economic well being?
Bush built his economic strategy around tax cuts, passing large reductions both in 2001 and 2003. Congressional Republicans are insisting that a similar agenda focused on tax cuts offers better prospects of reviving the economy than President Obama's combination of some tax cuts with heavy government spending. But the bleak economic results from Bush's two terms, tarnish, to put it mildly, the idea that tax cuts represent an economic silver bullet.
--National Journal researcher Cameron Joseph contributed.