Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2020

SEVEN. 14, 2021 – The US Census Bureau today announced that median household income in 2020 declined 2.9% between 2019 and 2020, and the official poverty rate increased by 1.0 percentage point. Meanwhile, the percentage of people covered by health insurance for all or part of 2020 was 91.4%. It is estimated that 8.6% of people, or 28.0 million, had no health insurance at any time in 2020, according to the Annual Social and Economic Supplement of the Current Population Survey of 2021 (CPS ASEC) .

Median household income was $ 67,521 in 2020, down 2.9% from the 2019 median of $ 69,560. This is the first statistically significant drop in median household income since 2011.

Between 2019 and 2020, median real earnings for all workers declined 1.2%, while median real earnings for full-time, full-year workers increased 6.9%. The total number of people with income declined by about 3.0 million, while the number of full-time, full-year workers fell by about 13.7 million.

The official poverty rate in 2020 was 11.4%, up 1.0 percentage point from 2019. This is the first increase in poverty after five consecutive annual declines. In 2020, 37.2 million people lived in poverty, about 3.3 million more than in 2019.

Private health insurance coverage continued to be more widespread than public coverage, at 66.5% and 34.8%, respectively. Some people may have more than one type of coverage during the calendar year. Among the health insurance subtypes, Employment Insurance was the most common health insurance subtype, covering 54.4% of the population for part or all of the calendar year.

These findings are contained in two Census Bureau reports: Income and poverty in the United States: 2020 and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2020. For consistency with previous reports, the income and poverty estimates in Income and Poverty in the United States: 2020 are based on the concept of cash income, which is before tax and does not include payments of stimulus and tax credits. An appendix to the Income and Poverty report provides after-tax estimates of median household income and measures of income inequality that reflect stimulus payments.

Another Census Bureau report, The Supplementary Poverty Measure: 2020, was also released today. The supplementary poverty measure (SPM) rate in 2020 was 9.1%. This was 2.6 percentage points lower than the 2019 SPM rate. The SPM estimates reflect after-tax income that includes stimulus payments. The SPM provides another way to measure poverty in the United States and serves as an additional indicator of economic well-being. The Census Bureau has released poverty estimates using the SPM annually since 2011 in conjunction with the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

All three reports are based on data from the ASEC CPS. The Current population survey (CPS), jointly sponsored by the Census Bureau and BLS, is conducted monthly and is the primary source of labor force statistics for the U.S. population. It is used to calculate monthly estimates of the unemployment rate. Supplements are added most months. The ASEC CPS – conducted in February, March and April – is designed to provide annual national estimates of income, poverty and health insurance numbers and rates. It collects information on income and health insurance coverage during the previous calendar year.