Median incomes are up and poverty rate down, surprisingly strong census figures show

(latimes) - Steady job growth and the biggest earnings boost on record helped sharply lower the nation's poverty level last year and finally provided relief to the long-running problem of stagnant incomes.

In its annual report on income and poverty, the Census Bureau said Tuesday that the share of people in the U.S. living in poverty dropped to 13.5% in 2015, marking one of the biggest annual declines in decades.

That was down from 14.7% in the prior year, but still considerably higher than the 12.3% poverty rate in 2006, the year before the Great Recession began, and the 40-year low of 11.3% in the year 2000.

The report also provided some encouraging news for a change on average American incomes. The median household income -- the point at which half make more and half less -- was $56,500 last year. That was up a substantial 5.2% from $53,700 in 2014, after adjusting for inflation.

American families still have some distance to go to recover fully from more than a decade of declining and stagnant earnings: The median household income was $57,900 in 1999.

“The good news is, maybe we’ve turned the corner,” said Sheldon Danziger, president of the Russell Sage Foundation, who like other experts following poverty and income issues had expected some improvement but nothing this large.

“I’m certainly more optimistic than I’ve been in a long time,” he said of the broad-based gains in income and poverty measures. “The prospects look good, at least for 2016 for being an improvement over 2015.”

The bureau also reported Tuesday that the number of people in the U.S. without health insurance fell further last year to 9.1% from 10.4% in 2014. The drop was expected, thanks mostly to the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, which saw its second full year of impact in 2015.