Census: Tennessee poverty rate inches up
KNOXVILLE — Tennessee’s poverty rate has been inching up despite growing household incomes, leaving the Volunteer State still among the poorest in the country, the Census Bureau reported Thursday.
However, more Tennesseans enjoy health insurance than the national average — a statistic that could change with proposed cutbacks in the state’s TennCare health insurance program.
Some 14.3 percent of Tennessee’s 5.6 million residents fell below the poverty line during the 2001-2003 period, ranking Tennessee ninth poorest among the states. The comparable national average was 12.1 percent.
A decade before, Tennessee’s poverty rate was 17.1 percent, but that was better than 11 other states.
“If you look at the data for Tennessee what you see is a mixed picture over the past decade,” said William Fox, a University of Tennessee economist.
“We remain a below-average income state, that is clear. Things have improved, (but) we still haven’t made as much progress on average” as other states, he said.
In the late ’90s, Tennessee hit a low of only 13.2 percent living in poverty, but that percentage started creeping up in the first years of the new decade.
Nationally, the number of Americans living in poverty increased slightly last year — up 1.3 million to about 35.8 million people, the Census Bureau said. Tennessee also showed little change.
The definition of poverty varies by the size of household. The threshold for a family of four was $18,810.
Meanwhile, median household income growth was nearly flat nationally while improving in Tennessee.
Still, Tennessee’s household income ranked 44th lowest in the country at $37,529, compared to a national average of $43,527 for the 2001-2003 period. A decade before, Tennessee ranked 46th lowest with an average of $26,690.
Tennessee income has risen every year but one over the past 10 years, but the state’s deficit against the national average tended to increase. Last year’s gap was $6,723, the highest of the decade. It narrowed this year to $5,998.
The Census Bureau calculated 11.8 percent of Tennesseans are without health insurance, compared to 15.1 percent nationally. Among the states, Tennessee ranks in the middle at No. 20.
That’s an improvement over a decade ago when Tennessee was No. 28 among the states with 13.4 percent of its population uninsured.
In a separate report called the American Community Survey, the Census Bureau said Tennessee’s population has grown by about 148,000 people since 2000. The new population tally: 5,689,261.
Women outnumber men, 51 percent to 49 percent, respectively — virtually unchanged in four years. Whites make up 79 percent of the population, down slightly from four years ago; blacks, 16 percent; and Hispanics, about 2.4 percent.
Tennessee education levels are rising, though still low. Slightly more than a third have a high school degree and 14 percent have a bachelor’s.