Statistical Portrait of the US

From a US Census bureau news release:

The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that real median household income in the United States fell 3.6 percent between 2007 and 2008, from $52,163 to $50,303. This breaks a string of three years of annual income increases and coincides with the recession that started in December 2007.

The nation’s official poverty rate in 2008 was 13.2 percent, up from 12.5 percent in 2007. There were 39.8 million people in poverty in 2008, up from 37.3 million in 2007.

Meanwhile, the number of people without health insurance coverage rose from 45.7 million in 2007 to 46.3 million in 2008, while the percentage remained unchanged at 15.4 percent.

Income inequality was statistically unchanged between 2007 and 2008, as measured by shares of aggregate household income by quintiles and the Gini index. The Gini index was 0.466 in 2008. (The Gini index is a measure of household income inequality; 0 represents perfect income equality and 1 perfect inequality.)

For comparison purposes, here are the Gini index numbers from the CIA database as reported by Wikipedia:

• US 45


• Canada 32


• UK 34


• European Union 31


• France 28


• Sweden 23

The US is closer to third world countries (i.e. in the 40-60 range) in terms of income inequality. Ah... the land of the free. That means free to starve because the rich control the economy and decide that the middle classes & poor should accept half a loaf rather than a full loaf that they get in most other developed countries.