The Hawkeye State’s median income dropped last year, while the number of Iowans living in poverty or without insurance coverage remained about the same, according to new data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The state’s median income fell to $44,491 in 2006, a 1 percent decrease from $45,039 the year before and a level that lags other Midwest states, according to an analysis by the Iowa Policy Project. The U.S. median income increased by 0.7 percent last year, from $47,845 to $48,201.

In comparison with Iowa’s neighbors, “we appear to be less competitive,” said David Osterberg, director of the nonpartisan research and policy group based in Mount Vernon.

“In fact, among the states in our region, only Kansas changed significantly for the better,” Osterberg said in a release. “Iowa median income is now about $1,000 lower than Kansas, Nebraska and Indiana. It is further below Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota – nearly $10,000 less than Minnesota. Only South Dakota and Missouri in our region have median incomes below Iowa.”

In other census figures for Iowa released today, the state’s poverty rate for 2005-06 was 10.8 percent, up slightly in the past two years but a change of 3 percentage points over the past five years.

The percentage of Iowans without health insurance stood at 10.5 percent in 2006, with 307,000 Iowans not covered at some point during the year. Those residents are among the estimated 47 million without health coverage nationally. Osterberg said the 2006 figures are in keeping with Iowa’s job climate, which has reflected a very slow recovery from the 2001 recession.

“The Iowa economy has produced fewer than 50,000 new jobs since the start of the 2001 recession,” he said. “In the 1990s, we had a net increase of over 160,000 over the same period,” he said. “So these new measures of poverty and income, while disappointing, are not that surprising.” The report, “Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2006,” is available at www.census.gov/prod/2007pubs/p60-233.pdf.