Updated 2:46 p.m. with additional contextual information
A newly released report shows that nearly 15 percent of people in Missouri are poor.
The Census Bureau's annual report released Tuesday offers a snapshot of the economic well-being of U.S. households for 2010, when joblessness hovered above 9 percent for a second year.
Nationally, nearly 1 in 6 people were classified as poor.
Meanwhile, the share of Americans without health coverage rose from 16.1 percent to 16.3 percent - or 49.9 million people - after the Census Bureau made revisions to numbers of the uninsured. That is due mostly to continued losses of employer-provided health insurance in the weakened economy.
In Missouri, 14 percent of residents lacked insurance.
But how does today's data compare with the numbers in years prior?
On being classified as poor:
- The data from the year 2000 shows that just over 9 percent of Missourians were poor. That's a 6 percent increase over the past ten years.
- Interestingly, in 1991, a decade further back in time, the number of those classified as poor in Missouri is the same as it is today, right at 14.8 percent.
- See full data tables (Excel Document)
On having insurance:
- In the year 2001, the data shows that 9.7 percent of Missourians lacked insurance. As we mentioned before, 14 percent of Missourians are currently lacking insurance - so, that's a 4.3 percent increase in the number of people in Missouri without insurance over the past ten years.
- See full data tables
