Historic inequality levels continue in new Census report

MSNBC

The newest Census data on poverty and inequality, released on Tuesday, did not include very many big surprises. The gap between the top and bottom income percentiles did not change significantly from 2012 to 2013, according to the agency’s annual report. The official poverty rate went down from 15% to 14.5%, but the absolute number of people in poverty remained about the same. Median household income for the under-65 crowd ticked up very slightly, by about 0.4%.

In other words, the story of American poverty and inequality in 2013 is the same story that’s been told for years–even decades. The number of people in poverty is still elevated relative to where it was in the 1970’s. Inequality is still on a long-term upward trajectory. And household earnings for most Americans remain largely stuck in place.

“We’ve still got a large, ongoing crisis,” said Stephen Pimpare, a professor in Columbia University’s School of Social Work. “And it’s a crisis not just of economics and the Great Recession, which is the way a lot of people are going to talk about it. Because while it was true that poverty is greater than prior to the Great Recession, poverty is where it was in the early 1990’s and early 1980’s.”

Similarly, while it’s true that household earnings in 2013 haven’t recovered to their pre-recession levels, that doesn’t quite tell the full story. As it turns out, median household income even remains below where it stood in the year 2000, two recessions ago.