Less Poverty in ‘97, Census Bureau Finds

The Census Bureau reported Thursday that poverty declined slightly in 1997 with the economic lots of blacks and Latinos improving most.

Experts said the booming economy--with the lowest unemployment rate in almost a quarter-decade--is the clearest reason for the figures. But they noted that welfare reform may also be contributing to the decline in poverty, as welfare recipients, prodded by new federal rules and by new state programs, leave public assistance rolls for better-paying, private-sector work.

In general, the new economic snapshot captures a nation now fully emerged from a stubborn recession, with median household incomes back to where they were before the recession began in 1990--just above $37,000. And while African Americans and Latinos continue to lag far behind whites economically, the two minority groups outpaced whites in moving out of poverty and in boosting their median income levels.

President Clinton on Thursday touted the Census Bureau findings, calling them “one more year’s worth of compelling evidence that this economic strategy is working. . . . This report also shows that our growing economy is giving more and more families a chance to work their way out of poverty.”

The Census Bureau found that in 1997, 8.3 million people of Latino origin lived below the poverty line of $16,400 for a family of four, down from 8.7 million in 1996. And the proportion of Latinos living in poverty dropped from 29.4% in 1996 to 27.1% last year. That is the largest one-year drop in poverty among Latinos in two decades.

In the same year, 9.1 million blacks lived in poverty, reflecting a drop of two percentage points in poverty rates for the group.

Median income--the level that marks the midpoint of household earnings--in 1997 stood at $38,972 (up 2.5% since 1996) for whites, $26,628 for Latinos (a 4.5% increase) and $25,050 (up 4.3%) for African Americans. Asian and Pacific Islanders, an ethnically diverse group that includes those of Chinese, Japanese and Indian origin, enjoyed the highest median income of $45,249, though it remained unchanged in 1997.

Between 1996 and 1997 alone, poverty rates among black and Latino households led by a single woman declined by 3.9 and 3.3 percentage points, respectively. And the median income of all female-headed households rose 3.2% between 1996 and 1997.

For black and Latino families headed by a single mother, the rise in median income was nothing short of remarkable: the median income for black households with a female head and no husband present grew 6.3% between 1996 and 1997. And for Latina-led families, that income figure grew 13.2%.

This year’s income and poverty assessment from the Census Bureau was the first since the passage of a landmark welfare reform law in August 1996. In the 10 months from August 1996 to June 1997--roughly the same period as that measured by the Census Bureau--the nation’s welfare caseloads dropped by about 1.7 million, dipping to just under 10.5 million people. That point marked the first time since 1969 that less than 4% of the U.S. population relied on welfare payments.

Robert Greenstein, who heads the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, saw good news and bad in the census figures.

On the positive side, Greenstein suggested that paid work, especially in an economy where unemployment has fallen below 5%, appears to be lifting the incomes of many who are leaving the welfare rolls for full-time jobs or combining work and welfare, as many states allow.

At the same time, Greenstein warned, as states encourage poor families to leave welfare rolls, many who would still qualify for food stamps and Medicaid benefits are not signing up for them and therefore are poorer than they should be. “As a result, the safety net is lifting fewer out of poverty than it used to,” Greenstein said.