[US] Poverty stats released today

from The Long Beach Press Telegram

Society: You can view the live press conference online.
By Greg Mellen, Staff writer

LONG BEACH - Interested residents and city officials will be checking in on their computers today when the U.S. Census Bureau releases its report on poverty, income and earnings and health insurance at 7 a.m.

Anyone interested in watching the live press conference on the Web or viewing the data can find it on the Internet at www.census.gov and click on the Income, Poverty and Health Insurance link at the top of the page.

Last year, Long Beach got the bad news that it had moved up the poverty charts from No. 7 to No. 6 nationally for percentage of people in poverty (26.4 percent) and to No. 3 in children in poverty (45.2 percent).

Some city officials downplayed the significance of last year's numbers, noting that Long Beach was statistically no different from most communities in the top 20.

The Census will actually be releasing two sets of related numbers - one from the Current Population Survey and one from the American Community Survey.

The CPS estimates median household income, health insurance coverage and the official annual estimate of poverty for the nationand the states.

The ACS breaks numbers down into more detailed socioeconomic and regional data.

This year's ACS has expanded nearly four-fold, allowing for less margin of error. Also, for the first time, the annual census numbers will be available for communities as small as 65,000 people.

The ACS report also includes a comparison of earnings for men and women by selected characteristics, including industry and occupation.

The Census Bureau will have a live Webcast with Louis Kincannon, director, U.S. Census Bureau, and David Johnson, chief, Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division, U.S. Census Bureau.

Greg Mellen can be reached at greg.mellen@presstelegram.com or (562) 499-1291.