US News
Record numbers in US lack health insurance, though incomes rise
By DPA
Aug 29, 2006, 19:00 GMT

Washington - A record 46.6 million people in the United States had no health insurance last year, even as incomes rose and the poverty rate remained stable, a government report said Tuesday.

Median income of US households grew by 1.1 per cent last year from 2004 to 46,326 dollars, the first rise since 1999, the study said.

But a more narrow measure tracking the average US employee showed a less positive picture.

Median earnings of full-time workers dropped last year by 1.8 per cent to 41,386 dollars for men and by 1.3 per cent to 31,858 for women, the US Census Bureau said in a nationwide annual survey of American households.

With the US lacking a European-style national health care system with legally mandatory contributions, the share of people without health insurance coverage rose to 15.9 per cent.

That was short of a record - the share of uninsured peaked at 16.3 per cent in 1998 - but the total number of nearly 47 million was the highest ever.

At the same time, 37 million people in the world's richest nation - 7.7 million families, or 12.6 per cent of the populace - lived in poverty last year, unchanged from 2004 and ending four years in a row in which the poverty rate rose, the report said.

The US government defines the poverty line as an annual income of just below 20,000 dollars for a family of four and 9,973 dollars for individuals.