The Census Bureau released a new report yesterday – Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2006 report. The data paints a dreary picture about the state of working America. For those of us who aren’t in the top 5%, this shouldn’t come as a big surprise.

On Health Insurance: According to the report, the number of uninsured Americans has reached a staggering 47 million! – up from 44.8 million in 2005. The NY Times editorial page has this analysis:

The main reason for the upsurge in uninsured Americans is that employment-based coverage continued to deteriorate. Indeed, the number of full-time workers without health insurance rose from 20.8 million in 2005 to 22.0 million in 2006, presumably because either the employers or the workers or both found it too costly.

Sadly, the one area where the nation had made progress — reducing the number of uninsured children — took a turn for the worse….  last year the number of uninsured children jumped more than 600,000 to reach 8.6 million. The main reason, advocacy groups say, is that access and funding for the low-income programs became tighter while employer coverage for dependents eroded.

Despite the problem, Bush wants to place more restrictions on the State Children’s Health Insurance Program – what we really need is an expansion of the program. Shall I also mention that workers who are in a union are much more likely to have health insurance than workers who are not….

On Income: According to the Census Bureau, household income climbed slightly in 2006 – to $48,000, an increase of 0.7%. However, a more in depth look at the report reveals that this increase isn’t as great as it sounds. Again, from the NY Times editorial page:

The fortunes of middle-class, working Americans also appear less upbeat on closer consideration of the data. Indeed, earnings of men and women working full time actually fell more than 1 percent last year.

This suggests that when household incomes rose, it was because more members of the household went to work, not because anybody got a bigger paycheck. The median income of working-age households, those headed by somebody younger than 65, remained more than 2 percent lower than in 2001, the year of the recession.

While the president thinks that this income data is an indication of why we shouldn’t raise taxes, we all know what it really means – the top 5% are seeing their incomes swell and the gap between the rich and poor is growing wider.

This post was written by Natasha Winegar. While Jonathan is away on vacation, she will be posting in his place.