• Between 2021 and 2022, the number of full-time, year-round workers increased by 3.4%, compared to a 1.7% increase in the number of total workers. This suggests a continuing shift from working part-time or part-year to full-time, year-round work.
• The real median earnings of all workers (including part-time and full-time workers) decreased 2.2% between 2021 and 2022. Median earnings of those who worked full-time, year-round decreased 1.3% in 2022.
• In 2022, 65.6% of working women were employed full-time, year-round. This is the largest share on record.

Post-tax income is defined as money income net of federal and state income taxes and credits, payroll taxes (FICA), and temporary cash payments administered by tax agencies, like rebates or stimulus payments. In 2022, several tax policies, enacted by the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) in 2021, lapsed, including: an expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit for filers without children and full refundability of the Child Tax Credit and Child and Dependent Care Credit. In 2020 and 2021, most households also received Economic Impact Payments (EIP) that were no longer issued in 2022. The contraction in federal tax programs led to a substantial decline in real post-tax income between 2021 and 2022. Appendix B of the income report compares household median income and inequality measures based on post-tax income.

• Real median post-tax household income in 2022 was 8.8% lower than in 2021.
• In contrast to the 1.2% decrease in the Gini index using pretax income between 2021 and 2022, the annual percentage change in the Gini index calculated by post-tax income increased 3.2% in 2022.

As defined by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Statistical Poverty Directive 14 and updated for inflation using the Consumer Price Index, the weighted average poverty threshold for a family of four in 2022 was $29,678. (Refer to <www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-poverty-thresholds.html> for the complete set of dollar value thresholds that vary by family size and composition.)

• The official poverty rate in 2022 was 11.5%, with 37.9 million people in poverty. Neither the rate nor the number in poverty was significantly different from 2021.
• The official poverty rate for Black individuals decreased between 2021 and 2022. The 2022 rate was the lowest on record.

The SPM extends the official poverty measure by accounting for several government programs that are designed to assist low-income families but are not included in official poverty measure calculations. The SPM also accounts for geographic variation in housing expenses when calculating the poverty thresholds and includes federal taxes, state taxes, work expenses, and medical expenses. The SPM does not replace the official poverty measure; however, it does provide a different metric of economic well-being that includes resources from government programs and tax credits to low-income families. In 2022, there were key changes in federal tax policy, including the expiration of temporary expansions to the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) as well as the end of pandemic-era stimulus payments which lead to increases in SPM poverty.

• The SPM rate in 2022 was 12.4%, an increase of 4.6 percentage points from 2021. This is the first increase in the overall SPM poverty rate since 2010.
• The SPM child poverty rate more than doubled, from 5.2% in 2021 to 12.4% in 2022.
• SPM rates also increased for 18- to 64-year-olds and people age 65 and older.
• Social Security continued to be the most important antipoverty program in 2022, moving 28.9 million people out of SPM poverty. Meanwhile, refundable tax credits moved 6.4 million out of SPM poverty, down from 9.6 million people in 2021.
• The share of the population with resources below 50% of their poverty threshold was lower for the SPM than for the official poverty measure with a consistent universe. In particular, 3.3% of children had SPM resources below half their SPM poverty threshold, compared to 6.6% using the official poverty methodology.
• SPM rates were higher than the official poverty measure with a consistent universe in three states, lower in 38 states, and not statistically different in nine states and the District of Columbia.
  • SPM rates were higher than official poverty rates in California, Maryland and New Jersey.
  • SPM rates were lower than official poverty rates in 38 states: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
  • SPM and official poverty rates were not statistically different in nine states: Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.

The CPS ASEC asks people about coverage during the previous calendar year. People are considered to be insured if they were covered by any type of health insurance for part or all of the previous calendar year. People are considered uninsured if, for the entire year, they were not covered by any type of insurance. Among the findings:

• More people were insured in 2022 than 2021. In 2022, 92.1% of people, or 304.0 million, had health insurance at some point during the year, representing an increase in the insured rate and number of insured from 2021 (91.7% or 300.9 million).
• In 2022, private health insurance coverage continued to be more prevalent than public coverage, at 65.6% and 36.1%, respectively. Some people may have more than one coverage type during the calendar year.
• Of the more common subtypes of health insurance coverage, employment-based insurance was the most prevalent, covering 54.5% of the population for some or all of the calendar year, followed by Medicaid (18.8%), Medicare (18.7%), and direct-purchase coverage (9.9%).
• Between 2021 and 2022, the rate of Medicare coverage increased by 0.3 percentage points to cover 18.7% of people. This increase was in part due to growth in the number of people age 65 and older.
• The uninsured rate among working-age adults ages 19 to 64 decreased 0.8 percentage points to 10.8% between 2021 and 2022, driven in part by a decrease in uninsured rates for workers.

Regional estimates are available for income, poverty and health insurance coverage in each respective report. There is also a table showing state-level poverty rates using three-year averages.

The CPS ASEC is subject to sampling and nonsampling errors. All comparisons made here and in each respective report have been tested and found to be statistically significant at the 90% confidence level, unless otherwise noted.

Additional information on the source of the data and accuracy of the income, poverty and health insurance estimates is available at <https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/techdocs/cpsmar23.pdf>.