The U.S. Census Bureau this week will release several reports aimed at explaining how Americans are faring when it comes to income, poverty, and health insurance coverage. The reports will be released Tuesday and Thursday, and the Coalition on Human Needs is preparing materials to help you understand what the information means and how to respond. 

First up Tuesday are three reports – Income in the United States: 2023, Poverty in the United States: 2023, and Health Insurance in the United States: 2023 – that will provide national statistics from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement. 

Next up – scheduled for release Thursday – are findings from the 2023 American Community Survey (ACS). These data will be available for the nation, states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, congressional districts, metropolitan areas, counties, places and other geographic areas with a population of 65,000 or more. These estimates include topics such as language spoken at home, educational attainment, commute to work, employment, mortgage status and rent, income, poverty and health insurance coverage.  Because the ACS surveys millions of people, it can provide useful breakdowns by age, race, ethnicity and other subcategories for topics like poverty and health insurance for states and many localities. 

On Tuesday, CHN will provide its First Look document, a quick glance at what Tuesday’s data show. It will provide answers to questions such as, did poverty rates increase or decrease? Did income go up or down? What about the number of people covered by health insurance? And what happened during the previous year with income equality – did it rise or fall? 

(You can view last year’s version of CHN’s First Look at Poverty, Hardship, and Health Insurance 2023.) 

Also on Tuesday, CHN will update its blog to provide a written narrative on what the numbers show – a companion piece to First Look. 

On Wednesday, CHN will publish a blog post that discusses the importance of the Current Population Survey (CPS) and Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) data published the day before – this is important for human needs advocates because, combined, the data show the difference that real policies make in people’s lives. The SPM is of particular importance because it takes into account policies that don’t get counted in the official poverty measure – such as the Child Tax Credit. 

And on Thursday, we’ll discuss the release of the second major trove of data – the American Community Survey, which provides data for states and communities on a wealth of topics, including income, poverty, and health insurance. And we’ll remind readers of how to use U.S. Census tables to find data local to their communities – click here if you missed our September 5 webinar on the subject. 

Finally, through the week, we’ll provide you with sample messaging in response to the new data, including sample graphics and a social media toolkit, non-partisan voter guides on issues, blog posts, and more.