What to Know About Next Week’s Poverty, Income, and Health Insurance Figures for 2021
End Notes
[1] U.S. Census Bureau, “Impact on Poverty of Alternative Resource Measures by Age: 1981 to 2020,” https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/tables/p60/273/Impact_Poverty.xlsx.
[2] Census is unlikely to distinguish between the advance part of the Child Tax Credit that Treasury delivered monthly — up to $300 per child per month between July and December of 2021 — and the balance that IRS paid as refunds after families filed their 2020 tax forms.
[3] The CBPP analysis merged Census SPM data with historical SPM data produced by Columbia University researchers. The basic findings — a record-low SPM poverty in 2020, and the transformation of a near-record poverty increase (measured without government assistance income) into the largest poverty reduction since 1968 (when government assistance is included) — hold up even after accounting for two technical issues raised below regarding the timing of stimulus payments and other survey problems in the pandemic.
[4] The NHIS data indicate that the uninsured rate declined in 2021, from 9.5 percent in the first quarter to 8.8 percent in the fourth quarter. For comparison, the NHIS full-year uninsured rate was 9.7 percent in 2020 and 10.3 percent in 2019, and the lowest full-year uninsured rate ever recorded by the NHIS was 9.0 percent in 2016. Moreover, the uninsured rate reached a quarterly record low of 8.0 percent in the first quarter of 2022, according to the NHIS, though this is outside the 2021 timeframe of the forthcoming Census data. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Health Insurance Coverage: Estimates from the National Health Interview Survey,” https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhis/healthinsurancecoverage.htm. Robin Cohen and Amy Cha, “Health Insurance Coverage: Early Release of Quarterly Estimates From the National Health Interview Survey, January 2021–March 2022,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, July 2022, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/earlyrelease/Quarterly_Estimates_2022_Q11.pdf.
[5] Gideon Lukens, Jennifer Sullivan, and Farah Erzouki, “COVID Relief Provisions Stabilized Health Coverage, Improved Access and Affordability,” CBPP, March 10, 2022, https://www.cbpp.org/research/health/covid-relief-provisions-stabilized-health-coverage-improved-access-and.
[6] Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Monthly Medicaid and CHIP Application, Eligibility Determination, and Enrollment Reports & Data, https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/national-medicaid-chip-program-information/medicaid-chip-enrollment-data/monthly-medicaid-chip-application-eligibility-determination-and-enrollment-reports-data/index.html.
[7] Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, “Total Effectuated Enrollment by State, August 2019-2021,” https://www.cms.gov/files/document/2019-2021-aug-effectuated-enrollment.xlsx. These enrollment statistics, known as “effectuated enrollment,” measure the number of people who are actively enrolled in the ACA marketplaces in August and have paid their monthly premium. Another statistic commonly cited, open enrollment period plan selections, includes people who sign up for marketplace coverage but do not necessarily effectuate their coverage by paying premiums. While effectuated enrollment best captures the number of people who are actively enrolled in the marketplaces, statistics for plan selections are often cited because they are known well in advance of effectuated enrollment data. For example, while 14.5 million people selected marketplace plans during 2022 open enrollment, data for effectuated enrollment in 2022 have not yet been released.
[8] Enacted on December 27, 2020, at least 99 percent of EIP2 dollars were paid in 2021, monthly Treasury figures show.
[9] The $600 stimulus payments were technically advance payments of a 2020 tax credit and were administered by IRS. For background and funding levels for all three stimulus payments, see https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-coronavirus-aid-relief-and-economic-security-act-cares-act-statistics.
[10] The CPS does not ask families directly about taxes or tax credits; instead, Census estimates them for families, which avoids adding needlessly to an already long survey. Census bases its estimates on respondents’ income in the legally relevant tax year, ensuring that the estimated value of the credits and the demographic profile of the assigned recipients are as accurate as possible.
EIP2s differ somewhat from other tax credits counted by Census in that their late-December enactment made it impossible for most families to anticipate their arrival during the year. Tax filers typically only receive refundable tax credits the following year after filing taxes. But in the case of most credits, families may be able to anticipate receiving the credit and reduce their tax withholding accordingly.
[11] The number of people EIP2s removed from poverty might be somewhat different if counted in 2021 than in 2020 (most likely smaller) because of differences such as the improving economy.
[12] CPS income and poverty data for 2019 were gathered in February, March, and April 2020. The Census data quality assessment was informed in part by employer pay records concerning CPS households that did and did not complete the survey in each of the last five years. Jonathan Rothbaum and Charles Hokayem, “How Did the Pandemic Affect Survey Response: Using Administrative Data to Evaluate Nonresponse in the 2021 Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement,” U.S. Census Bureau, September 14, 2021, https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/research-matters/2021/09/pandemic-affect-survey-response.html.
[13] In addition, the CPS poverty rate for 2019 was about 0.5 percentage points too low. CBPP analysis of Census CPS data at https://www.census.gov/data/datasets/2020/demo/cps/2020-pub-use-adj-nonresp-corono-pandemic.html.
[14] Due to a separate issue, it will be easier to accurately compare 2018 with 2021 in the case of CPS poverty data than in the case of median income. As it does every ten years, Census is switching from basing the CPS on the 2010 decennial census to basing it on the 2020 decennial census. This switch makes little difference — no more than 0.1 percentage point — for poverty rates overall, by age group, or for Black, Latino, white, or Asian populations. But the change matters more for income: it raises median household income in 2020 by a substantial 0.72 percent, a Census Bureau paper finds. (Census produced CPS data for 2020 each way, based on both the 2010 and 2020 censuses, but will produce 2021 data based only on the 2020 census.) To compare median income from 2018 and 2021, users should increase 2018 income by 0.72 percent. See Em Shrider, Jessica Semega, and Katherine K. Starkey, “Effects of 2020 Census-Based Population Controls on 2020 Income, Poverty, Supplemental Poverty, and Health Insurance in the United States Estimates,” U.S. Census Bureau working paper, August 2022, https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/working-papers/2022/demo/sehsd-wp2022-14.pdf.