The 2009 Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States report was released today at the U.S. Census Bureau’s website. It turns out that the real median household income of $49,777 in 2008 remained the same in 2009. The poverty rate, however, grew to 14.3 percent. In 2008, it was 13.2 percent. This means there were 43.6 million people living in poverty during 2009. It was also found that 50.7 million people were covered with health insurance in 2009, which is a nice increase from the 46.3 million covered in 2008. To get the full information on the report, click here.
The number of initial claims for unemployment fell last week dropped to 450,000. You can see the Labor Department’s full report here.
For most of the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down, but by market close it had increased 22.1 points to 10,594.83. The Nasdaq rose 1.93 points to 2,303.25 and the S&P 500 fell .41 points to 1,124.66.
European and Asian markets were down today, as the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 lost .28 percent and China’s Shanghai Composite fell 1.89 percent.
Stocks in the news: Fedex Corp (NYSE: FDX), Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ: RIMM), Boeing Co (NYSE: BA).
