Poverty Rate Soaring? Rate Has Declined Past Three Years

MLive, a state online news service, has posted a story about poverty in Michigan. It used U.S. Census data to look at two different time periods, 2004-2009 and 2010-2014, comparing the poverty rate for the two periods

MLive headlined the story, “Michigan's poverty rate soars as income drops even in economic rebound, census shows.”

ForTheRecord says: It seems hard to claim Michigan’s poverty rate is soaring when the actual rate has fallen in each of the past three years. Although the particular data cited by MLive came in five-year blocks, figures for each year's poverty rate are also available and they paint a more accurate picture of the trend.

Here are the annual poverty rates in Michigan for each year since 2005:

2005: 13.2%

2006: 13.5%

2007: 14.0%

2008: 14.4%

2009: 16.2%

2010: 16.8%

2011: 17.5%

2012: 17.4%

2013: 17.0%

2014: 16.2%