Third and State

Update: You can read a full overview of the Census data released this week from the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center

Since Chris got to bring you the good news in the latest release of Census data on health insurance, it falls to me to deliver the bad news regarding incomes and poverty.

At 12.4% in 2010-11, the poverty rate in Pennsylvania is up from 10.8% in 2006-2007 before the recession began. Over this same period the national poverty rate increased from 12.4% to 15.1%.

Compared to before the recession (2006-07), the current two-year period (2010-11) is marked by lower incomes and higher poverty.

Median household income in Pennsylvania fell by $3,435, or 6.4%, dropping from $53,309 in 2006-07 to $49,874 during 2010-11. During the same period, median income in the U.S. dropped by 6.8%.

Next week we will get another round of data from the American Community Survey which thanks to its larger sample size may provide some more insight into local trends in income and poverty in Pennsylvania.