Poverty, Health Insurance, and Median Household Income

In the article

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/17/us/politics/census-bureau-poverty-rate-uninsured.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

the author notes that the number of people without health insurance has declined in the last year, but that there was no significant change in median household income or the poverty rate.

Neil Irwin comments on this in the blog post at

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/17/upshot/why-americans-still-think-the-economy-is-terrible.html

He notes that median income has been falling for several years.

In

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-16/the-richest-americans-are-winning-the-economy-recovery

the authors note that only the richest have fully recovered from the Great Recession

Unemployment and Labor Force Participation

One of the key things I emphasize in discussing the unemployment rate is that that statistic cannot be understood without context.  The context is what is happening with the labor force.  Unemployment is measured by the answer to a specific question about job search.  Many people who are not “actively” seeking work are still unemployed – they just fall into the category “not in the labor force” because they did not engage in the specific job-seeking activity in the relevant period.

This article by Annie Lowrey makes that point and others: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/22/business/states-cutting-weeks-of-aid-to-the-jobless.html?ref=annielowrey&_r=0.