Today the Census Bureau came out with its annual American Community Survey, which provides much more detailed information on income levels, poverty, health insurance and many other demographic statistics for 2009.
Like the earlier Current Population Survey, a more rough measure (see our post from 2 weeks ago), the more fine-tuned ACS confirms the continued progress Massachusetts is making on insurance coverage. We remain by far the best in the country in health insurance coverage, and despite the deep recession, we have not lost significant ground.
The Mass Budget and Policy Center, as always, has the definitive summary of the survey findings. In addition to the summary of the health insurance statistics, they also analyzed the poverty and household income results, both of which showed no significant increase.
Our overall uninsurance rate was around 4%, with about 271,000 uninsured. The national rate was 15%. For kids, only around 20,000 children are uninsured, around 1.4% of the under-18 population. The national uninsurance rates for kids was about 9%.
The study findings reflected the ongoing racial, ethnic, age and income disparities in uninsurance in Massachusetts.
Here are the uninsurance rates for various Massachusetts subpopulations:
| Population | Uninsurance Rate |
| Under 18 years old | 1.4% |
| 18-24 years old | 8.1% |
| 25-34 years old | 9.5% |
| 35-65 years old | 4.3% |
| Male | 5.3% |
| Female | 3.1% |
| White | 3.5% |
| Black or African American | 6.1% |
| English spoken at home | 2.8% |
| Spanish spoken at home | 7.9% |
| Employed | 4.8% |
| Unemployed | 15.3% |
-Brian Rosman
