A look at the new data on income, poverty, health insurance

For data nerds, Sept. 12 was a pretty big day -- the day that the Census Bureau released its yearly statistical reports on income and poverty, and on health insurance. The newly released data covers 2016.

To help readers cut through the weeds, we’ll summarize a few of the key statistics here.

Median household income hit $59,039 in 2016, an inflation-adjusted increase 3.2 percent over 2015. It marked the second consecutive year that median household income increased. It was also the highest median household income level ever recorded, after adjusting for inflation.

As the chart below shows, Asian-Americans had the highest incomes, followed by non-Hispanic whites. Both were above the overall average. Hispanics ranked below the overall average, with African-Americans ranking below Hispanics.

However, all racial and ethnic groups have seen two consecutive years of increased median household incomes.

As for gender, men who worked full-time, year-round, earned $51,640 in 2016, compared to $41,554 for women, not significantly different than the median by gender in 2015. The female-to-male earnings ratio was 81 cents to the dollar when rounded up, a slight increase from the 2015 ratio of 80 cents to the dollar, taking account of rounding.