Latino Economic
Distress:
Recent Statistics
by Angelo Falc�n (September 22, 2010)
The Census Bureau recently released disturbing
statistics on poverty, income and health insurance coverage in the
United State for 2009. This NiLP Latino Datanote updates
some of these figures with Census information for 2010 from the
same dataset, adds the most current related statistics from Puerto
Rico (a territory of the United States), and presents some findings
from the Census Bureau's new alternative poverty estimates it is
developing. The purpose here is to further expand the empirical
basis of the discussion on the growth in poverty as it affects the
Latino community beyond what has so far appeared in the media on
these issues.
Poverty and Unemployment in
2010
According to unpublished statistics from the March
2010 supplement to the Current Population Survey (CPS), the poverty
rate for the United States in 2010 was 14.5 percent, representing
over 44 million poor persons. For Latinos, the poverty rate was
25.4 percent, compared to 12.5 percent for Whites and Asians, 25.9
percent for Blacks and 27.7 percent for American Indians. The 12.4
million Latinos living in poverty make up 28.3 percent of the US
poverty population, in comparison to 16 percent to the general
population. None of these figures for 2010 include Puerto Rico (the
poverty rate for Puerto Rico in 2008 was 46.0 percent; click here for the source of
Puerto Rico statistics used in this report).
The poverty rate
among Latinos varied for the different subgroups. Using the
categories provided by the CPS, in 2010 Mexicans had the highest
poverty rate among Latinos at 27.9 percent, followed by stateside
Puerto Ricans (22.6 percent), Central and South Americans (21.3
percent), Cubans (17.1 percent), and Other Spanish (18.5 percent).
Mexicans made up 71.8 percent of all the Latino poor.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics, in August 2010, Latinos had an unemployment rate of
12.0 percent. This compared to 8.7 percent unemployment for Whites
and 16.3 percent for Blacks. The latest figure for Puerto Rico was
for July 2010 when unemployment there stood at 16.9
percent.
The Latino unemployed
made up 18.3 percent to total unemployed stateside (excluding
Puerto Rico). The unemployment rate among Latino men (20 years and
older) was 10.2 percent, Latina women (20 years nd older) was 11.6
percent, and among Latino youth (both sexes, 16 to 19 years old) it
was 33.0 percent.
Income, Poverty and Health Insurance 2008
and 2009
For a report just issued by the Census
Bureau for 2009 on income, poverty and health insurance
coverage, the headline was that they reported the highest poverty
rate for the United States since 1994. These figures provide one of the first
looks at the negative impacts of the recent economic
recession.
The
median household income for Latinos in 2009 was $38,039, 69.8
percent that of Whites. The median household income in 2009 for
Whites was $54,461, for Asians it was $65,469 and for Blacks it was
$32,584. In Puerto Rico, the latest figures available are for 2008,
when the median household income there was $18,610, which was only
33.6 percent that of stateside Whites in that year.
In 2009, stateside Latinos had a poverty
rate of 25.3 percent, up from 23.2 percent the previous
year. As we reported above, in 2010 it rose again very slightly to
25.4 percent. The Latino poverty figure is not statistically
significantly different from that of Blacks, which was 25.8
percent, but considerably higher than that of Whites (9.4 percent)
and Asians (12.5 percent).
The poverty rate for
stateside Latinos has increased from 22.8 percent in 1972, when
these poverty statistics were first calculated for Latinos by the
Census Bureau, to 25.4 percent in 2010. The high for Latinos in
this period was in 1994, when their poverty rate reached 30.7
percent.
In 2009, Latinos
continued to have the highest percentage of persons not covered by
any health insurance. In that year, 32.4 percent of Latinos
reported not having health insurance, compared to 21.0 percent of
Blacks, 17.2 percent of Asians and 12.0 percent of Whites. In
Puerto Rico, in sharp contrast, only 8.6 percent reported not
having health insurance in 2008.
Alternative Poverty
Estimates
Since the official U.S. poverty measure was first
published in 1964, there has been continuing debate about
alternative approaches to the measurement of poverty. Recognizing
that alternative statistics can provide useful information, the
Office of Management and Budget's Chief Statistician formed an Interagency Technical Working Group
on Developing a Supplemental Poverty Measure charged with
developing a set of initial starting points to permit the U.S.
Census Bureau, in cooperation with the Bureau of Labor Statistics
(BLS), to produce a Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM). The new
supplemental measure will be published initially in the fall of
2011 at the same time and level of detail as the 2010 income and
poverty statistics that contain the official poverty measure, and
annually thereafter.
The SPM will not replace the official poverty
measure and has been designed as an experimental measure that
defines thresholds and resources in a manner different from the
official poverty measure. For details on the different adjusted
estimates in the table below (MOOP, etc.), click here.
The Census Bureau will be releasing these
alternative poverty estimates next year that factor in additional
expenses and income, and adjust for geographical differences in
cost of living. Applying these adjustments to the official poverty
rate, the economic situation of Latinos appears consistently worse
than for any other racial-ethnic group. Using these alternative
measures for 2008, the Latino poverty rate ranged from 25.9 to a
high of 31.8 percent. These figures do not include Puerto
Rico.
Angelo
Falc�n is President of the National Institute for Latino
Policy (nILP). He can be reached at afalcon@latinopolicy.org.
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