Poverty rates for S.A., Texas plunge in ’19
2020 data likely to be much different amid coronavirus
The poverty rate for San Antonio residents fell to its lowest level in at least a decade in 2019, while the statewide rate dropped to a more than 15-year low, according to new census numbers.
Although the numbers are positive, they provide a snapshot of life a year ago — before the COVID-19 pandemic changed everything. The 2020 data are expected to look much different; those figures will be released next year.
In 2019, the nation’s poverty rate plunged to its lowest level since the Census Bureau began its
American Community Survey in 2005.
The poverty rate did not rise in any state last year or in any of the nation’s 25 most populous metro areas, according to census estimates released Wednesday. Poverty rates went down in 23 states and the District of Columbia and in more than half of the 25 largest metro areas.
Another bright spot: Median household income in the city of San Antonio rose 7.7 percent in 2019 while increasing only marginally in Texas and the nation as a whole.
Yet San Antonio continued to lag Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin,
New Braunfels, Corpus Christi and Beaumont in median household income.
San Antonio’s poverty rate dropped to 16.8 percent in 2019, down 3.2 percentage points from 2018.
That’s a significant decline from the city’s highest poverty rate — 21.7 percent, recorded in 2012.
According to the latest estimates, 255,532 San Antonio residents were living in poverty last year — around 40,000 fewer than in 2012.
Across Texas, the poverty rate fell to 13.6 percent, the lowest level recorded since at least 2004. And
the number of Texans living in poverty dropped below 4 million for the first time since 2008, the year of the Great Recession.
Nationally, the poverty rate dipped to 12.3 percent.
“Things were economically going along pretty well until 2020. And we don’t really have data on that,” said Texas State Demographer Lloyd Potter.
“We’re likely to see an increase in poverty, a decline in household income and probably a further decline in the population that has health insurance,” said Potter, a demography professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
The positive trends apparent in the 2019 census data are likely to be washed away by the pandemic, agreed Amy Knop-narbutis, research and data director at Every Texan, a leftleaning research organization in Austin.
“Although the 2019 data was showing some positive trends, we know that’s not the reality anymore,” she said Wednesday. “What the pandemic has revealed is that’s often a fragile gain.”
She expects the gains in income will “get rolled back very quickly,” disproportionately affecting “the same groups that were lagging behind to begin with.”
San Antonio’s median household income last year rose to $53,751, up from $49,912, the inflation-adjusted figure for 2018.
However, residents took home more pay in New Braunfels, where the median household income last year was $81,131; Austin, $75,413; Fort Worth, $65,356; Corpus Christi, $55,564; Dallas, $55,332; and Beaumont, $54,488.
San Antonio also lagged far behind the statewide median household income of $64,034 and the U.S. median of $65,712.
Several notable Texas cities recorded lower incomes than San Antonio in 2019 — Houston at $52,450; El Paso at $48,542 and Brownsville at $41,271.
Census officials said 39 states and the District of Columbia saw increases in real median household income between 2018 and 2019; no states reported a significant decline. Incomes also went up in 23 of the nation’s 25 most populous metro areas during the same one-year period.
San Antonio saw its percentage of uninsured residents rise to 18.5 percent last year. That’s the highest since 2013, the first year that the Affordable Care Act allowed all Americans to purchase health insurance through the marketplace. The latest census numbers estimate that nearly 283,000 San Antonio residents are uninsured.
In 2013, 20.8 percent of San Antonio residents — more than 290,000 people — lacked health insurance.
The uninsured rate went up across Texas, one of 19 states where that trend was evident. The census data showed that more than 5.2 million Texans — 18.4 percent of the state’s population — lacked health insurance last year, up from 17.7 percent, or 5 million people, in 2018.
However, the state’s uninsured rate remains well below the 22.1 percent recorded in 2013, the first year of open enrollment through the Affordable Care Act.
Across the nation, 9.2 percent of residents — or 29.6 million people — lacked health insurance last year. That’s an increase of 1 million people since 2018, when the nation’s uninsured rate stood at 8.9 percent.