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tipsycad147 · 3 years

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Samlesbury witches

The Samlesbury witches were three women from the Lancashire village of Samlesbury – Jane Southworth, Jennet Bierley, and Ellen Bierley – accused by a 14-year-old girl, Grace Sowerbutts, of practising witchcraft. Their trial at Lancaster Assizes in England on 19 August 1612 was one in a series of witch trials held there over two days, among the most famous in English history. The trials were unusual for England at that time in two respects: Thomas Potts, the clerk to the court, published the proceedings in his The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster; and the number of the accused found guilty and hanged was unusually high, ten at Lancaster and another at York. All three of the Samlesbury women were acquitted.

The charges against the women included child murder and cannibalism. In contrast, the others tried at the same assizes, who included the Pendle witches, were accused of maleficium – causing harm by witchcraft.[4] The case against the three women collapsed "spectacularly" when the chief prosecution witness, Grace Sowerbutts, was exposed by the trial judge to be "the perjuring tool of a Catholic priest"

Many historians, notably Hugh Trevor-Roper, have suggested that the witch trials of the 16th and 17th centuries were a consequence of the religious struggles of the period, with both the Catholic and Protestant Churches determined to stamp out what they regarded as heresy. The trial of the Samlesbury witches is perhaps one clear example of that trend; it has been described as "largely a piece of anti-Catholic propaganda", and even as a show-trial, to demonstrate that Lancashire, considered at that time to be a wild and lawless region, was being purged not only of witches but also of "popish plotters" (i.e., recusant Catholics).

Background

King James I, who came to the English throne from Scotland in 1603, had a keen interest in witchcraft. By the early 1590s, he was convinced that Scottish witches were plotting against him. His 1597 book, Daemonologie, instructed his followers that they must denounce and prosecute any supporters or practitioners of witchcraft. In 1604, the year following James's accession to the English throne, a new witchcraft law was enacted, "An Act against Conjuration, Witchcraft and dealing with evil and wicked spirits", imposing the death penalty for causing harm by the use of magic or the exhumation of corpses for magical purposes. James was, however, sceptical of the evidence presented in witch trials, even to the extent of personally exposing discrepancies in the testimonies presented against some accused witches.

The accused witches lived in Lancashire, an English county which, at the end of the 16th century, was regarded by the authorities as a wild and lawless region, "fabled for its theft, violence and sexual laxity, where the church was honoured without much understanding of its doctrines by the common people". Since the death of Queen Mary and the accession to the throne of her half-sister Elizabeth in 1558, Catholic priests had been forced into hiding, but in remote areas like Lancashire they continued to celebrate mass in secret. In early 1612, the year of the trials, each justice of the peace (JP) in Lancashire was ordered to compile a list of the recusants in their area – those who refused to attend the services of the Church of England, a criminal offence at that time

Samlesbury Hall, family home of the Southworths.

Southworth family

The 16th-century English Reformation, during which the Church of England broke away from the authority of the pope and the Catholic Church, split the Southworth family of Samlesbury Hall. Sir John Southworth, head of the family, was a leading recusant who had been arrested several times for refusing to abandon his Catholic faith. His eldest son, also called John, did convert to the Church of England, for which he was disinherited, but the rest of the family remained staunchly Catholic

One of the accused witches, Jane Southworth, was the widow of the disinherited son, John. Relations between John and his father do not seem to have been amicable; according to a statement made by John Singleton, in which he referred to Sir John as his "old Master", Sir John refused even to pass his son's house if he could avoid it, and believed that Jane would probably kill her husband. Jane Southworth (née Sherburne) and John were married in about 1598, and the couple lived in Samlesbury Lower Hall. Jane had been widowed only a few months before her trial for witchcraft in 1612, and had seven children.

Investigations

On 21 March 1612, Alizon Device, who lived just outside the Lancashire village of Fence, near Pendle Hill, encountered John Law, a pedlar from Halifax. She asked him for some pins, which he refused to give to her, and a few minutes later Law suffered a stroke, for which he blamed Alizon. Along with her mother Elizabeth and her brother James, Alizon was summoned to appear before local magistrate Roger Nowell on 30 March 1612. Based on the evidence and confessions he obtained, Nowell committed Alizon and ten others to Lancaster Gaol to be tried at the next assizes for maleficium, causing harm by witchcraft.

Other Lancashire magistrates learned of Nowell's discovery of witchcraft in the county, and on 15 April 1612 JP Robert Holden began investigations in his own area of Samlesbury. As a result, eight individuals were committed to Lancaster Assizes, three of whom – Jane Southworth, Jennet Bierley, and Ellen Bierley – were accused of practising witchcraft on Grace Sowerbutts, Jennet's granddaughter and Ellen's niece

Trial

The trial was held on 19 August 1612 before Sir Edward Bromley, a judge seeking promotion to a circuit nearer London, and who might therefore have been keen to impress King James, the head of the judiciary. Before the trial began, Bromley ordered the release of five of the eight defendants from Samlesbury, with a warning about their future conduct. The remainder – Jane Southworth, Jennet Bierley, and Ellen Bierley – were accused of using "diverse devillish and wicked Arts, called Witchcrafts, Inchauntments, Charmes, and Sorceries, in and upon one Grace Sowerbutts", to which they pleaded not guilty. Fourteen-year-old Grace was the chief prosecution witness.

Grace was the first to give evidence. In her statement she claimed that both her grandmother and aunt, Jennet and Ellen Bierley, were able to transform themselves into dogs and that they had "haunted and vexed her" for years She further alleged that they had transported her to the top of a hayrick by her hair, and on another occasion had tried to persuade her to drown herself. According to Grace, her relatives had taken her to the house of Thomas Walshman and his wife, from whom they had stolen a baby to suck its blood. Grace claimed that the child died the following night, and that after its burial at Samlesbury Church Ellen and Jennet dug up the body and took it home, where they cooked and ate some of it and used the rest to make an ointment that enabled them to change themselves into other shapes

Grace also alleged that her grandmother and aunt, with Jane Southworth, attended sabbats held every Thursday and Sunday night at Red Bank, on the north shore of the River Ribble. At those secret meetings they met with "foure black things, going upright, and yet not like men in the face", with whom they ate, danced, and had sex.

Thomas Walshman, the father of the baby allegedly killed and eaten by the accused, was the next to give evidence. He confirmed that his child had died of unknown causes at about one year old. He added that Grace Sowerbutts was discovered lying as if dead in his father's barn on about 15 April, and did not recover until the following day. Two other witnesses, John Singleton and William Alker, confirmed that Sir John Southworth, Jane Southworth's father-in-law, had been reluctant to pass the house where his son lived, as he believed Jane to be an "evil woman, and a Witch

Examinations

Thomas Potts, the clerk to the Lancaster Assizes, records that after hearing the evidence many of those in court were persuaded of the accused's guilt. On being asked by the judge what answer they could make to the charges laid against them, Potts reports that they "humbly fell upon their knees with weeping teares", and "desired him [Bromley] for Gods cause to examine Grace Sowerbutts". Immediately "the countenance of this Grace Sowerbutts changed"; the witnesses "began to quarrel and accuse one another", and eventually admitted that Grace had been coached in her story by a Catholic priest they called Thompson. Bromley then committed the girl to be examined by two JPs, William Leigh and Edward Chisnal. Under questioning Grace readily admitted that her story was untrue, and said she had been told what to say by Jane Southworth's uncle, Christopher Southworth aka Thompson, a Jesuit priest who was in hiding in the Samlesbury area; Southworth was the chaplain at Samlesbury Hall, and Jane Southworth's uncle by marriage. Leigh and Chisnal questioned the three accused women in an attempt to discover why Southworth might have fabricated evidence against them, but none could offer any reason other than that each of them "goeth to the [Anglican] Church

After the statements had been read out in court Bromley ordered the jury to find the defendants not guilty, stating that:

God hath delivered you beyond expectation, I pray God you may use this mercie and favour well; and take heed you fall not hereafter: And so the court doth order that you shall be delivered.

Potts concludes his account of the trial with the words: "Thus were these poore Innocent creatures, by the great care and paines of this honourable Judge, delivered from the danger of this Conspiracie; this bloudie practise of the Priest laid open"

https://www.wikiwand.com/

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gordonwilliamsweb · 3 years

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At Texas Border, Pandemic’s High Toll Lays Bare Gaps in Health and Insurance

EL PASO, Texas — Alfredo “Freddy” Valles was an accomplished trumpeter and a beloved music teacher for nearly four decades at one of the city’s poorest middle schools.

He was known for buying his students shoes and bow ties for their band concerts, his effortlessly positive demeanor and a suave personal style — “he looked like he stepped out of a different era, the 1950s,” said his niece Ruby Montana.

While Valles was singular in life, his death at age 60 in February was part of a devastating statistic: He was one of thousands of deaths in Texas border counties — where coronavirus mortality rates far outpaced state and national averages.

In the state’s border communities, including El Paso, not only did people die of covid-19 at significantly higher rates than elsewhere, but people under age 65 were also more likely to die, according to a KHN-El Paso Matters analysis of covid death data through January. More than 7,700 people died of covid in the border area during that period.

In Texas, covid death rates for border residents younger than 65 were nearly three times the national average for that age group and more than twice the state average. And those ages 18-49 were nearly four times more likely to die than those in the same age range across the U.S.

“This was like a perfect storm,” said Heide Castañeda, an anthropology professor at the University of South Florida who studies the health of border residents. She said a higher-than-normal prevalence of underlying health issues combined with high uninsurance rates and flagging access to care likely made the pandemic even more lethal for those living along the border than elsewhere.

That pattern was not as stark in neighboring New Mexico. Border counties there recorded covid death rates 41% lower than those in Texas, although the New Mexico areas were well above the national average as of January, the KHN-El Paso Matters analysis found. Texas border counties tallied 282 deaths per 100,000, compared with 166 per 100,000 in New Mexico.

That stark divide could be seen even when looking at neighboring El Paso County, Texas, and Doña Ana County, New Mexico. The death rate for residents under 65 was 70% higher in El Paso County.

Health experts said Texas’ refusal to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, a shortage of health care options and the state’s lax strategy toward the pandemic also contributed to a higher death rate at the border. Texas GOP leaders have opposed Medicaid expansion for a litany of economic and political reasons, though largely because they object to expanding the role or size of government.

“Having no Medicaid expansion and an area that is already underserved by primary care and preventive care set the stage for a serious situation,” Castañeda said. “A lot of this is caused by state politics.”

Texas was one of the first states to reopen following the nationwide coronavirus shutdown in March and April last year. Last June — even as cases were rising — Gov. Greg Abbott allowed all businesses, including restaurants, to operate at up to 50% capacity, with limited exceptions. And he refused to put any capacity restrictions on churches and other religious facilities or let local governments impose mask requirements.

In November, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed an injunction to stop a lockdown order implemented by the El Paso county judge, the top administrative officer, at a time when El Paso hospitals were so overwhelmed with covid patients that 10 mobile morgues had to be set up at an area hospital to accommodate the dead.

Unlike Texas, New Mexico expanded Medicaid under the ACA and, as a result, has a much lower uninsured rate than Texas for people under age 65 — 12% compared with Texas’ 21%, according to Census figures. And New Mexico had aggressive rules for face masks and public gatherings. Still, that didn’t spare New Mexico from the crisis. Outbreaks in and around the Navajo reservation hit hard. Overall, its state death rate exceeded the state rate for Texas, but along the border New Mexico’s rates were lower in all age groups.

For some border families, the immense toll of the pandemic meant multiple deaths among loved ones. Ruby Montana lost not only her uncle to covid in recent months, but also her cousin Julieta “Julie” Apodaca, a former elementary school teacher and speech therapist.

Montana said Valles’ death surprised the family. He had been teaching remotely at Guillen Middle School in El Paso’s Segundo Barrio neighborhood, an area known as “the other Ellis Island” because of its adjacency to the border and its history as an enclave for Mexican immigrant families.

When Valles first got sick with covid in December, Montana and the family were not worried, not only because he had no preexisting health conditions, but also because they knew his lungs were strong from practicing his trumpet daily over the course of decades.

In early January, he went to an urgent care center after his condition deteriorated. He had pneumonia and was told to go straight to the emergency room.

“When I took him to the [hospital], I dropped him off and went to go park,” said his wife, Elvira. But when she returned, she was not allowed inside. “I never saw him again,” she said.

Valles, a father of three, had been teaching one of his three grandchildren, 5-year-old Aliq Valles, to play the trumpet.

They “were joined at the hip,” Montana said. “That part has been really hard to deal with too. [Aliq] should have a whole lifetime with his grandpa.”

Hispanic adults are more than twice as likely to die of covid as white adults, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Texas, Hispanic residents died of covid at a rate four times as high as that of non-Hispanic white people, according to a December analysis by The Dallas Morning News.

Ninety percent of residents under 65 in Texas border counties are Hispanic, compared with 37% in the rest of the state. Latinos have high rates of chronic conditions like diabetes and obesity, which increases their risks of covid complications, health experts say.

Because they were more likely to die of covid at earlier ages, Latinos are losing the most years of potential life among all racial and ethnic groups, said Coda Rayo-Garza, an advocate for policies to aid Hispanic populations and a professor of political science at the University of Texas-San Antonio.

Expanding Medicaid, she said, would have aided the border communities in their fight against covid, as they have some of the highest rates of residents without health coverage in the state.

“There has been a disinvestment in border areas long before that led to this outcome that you’re finding,” she said. “The legislature did not end up passing Medicaid expansion, which would have largely benefited border towns.”

The higher death rates among border communities are “unfortunately not surprising,” said Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-El Paso).

“It’s exactly what we warned about,” Escobar said. “People in Texas died at disproportionate rates because of a dereliction on behalf of the governor. He chose not to govern … and the results are deadly.”

Abbott spokesperson Renae Eze said the governor mourns every life lost to covid.

“Throughout the entire pandemic, the state of Texas has worked diligently with local officials to quickly provide the resources needed to combat covid and keep Texans safe,” she said.

Ernesto Castañeda, a sociology professor at American University in Washington, D.C., who is not related to Heide Castañeda, said structural racism is integrally linked to poor health outcomes in border communities. Generations of institutional discrimination — through policing, educational and job opportunities, and health care — worsens the severity of crisis events for people of color, he explained.

“We knew it was going to be bad in El Paso,” Ernesto Castañeda said. “El Paso has relatively low socioeconomic status, relatively low education levels, high levels of diabetes and overweight [population].”

In some Texas counties along the border more than a third of workers are uninsured, according to an analysis by Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families.

“The border is a very troubled area in terms of high uninsured rates, and we see all of those are folks put at increased risk by the pandemic,” said Joan Alker, director of the center.

In addition, because of a shortage of health workers along much of the border, the pandemic surge was all the deadlier, said Dr. Ogechika Alozie, an El Paso specialist in infectious diseases.

“When you layer on top not having enough medical personnel with a sicker-on-average population, this is really what you find happens, unfortunately,” he said.

The federal government has designated the entire Texas border region as both a health professional shortage area and a medically underserved area.

Jagdish Khubchandani, a professor of public health at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, about 40 miles northwest of El Paso, said the two cities were like night and day in their response to the crisis.

“Restrictions were far more rigid in New Mexico,” he said. “It almost felt like two different countries.”

Manny Sanchez, a commissioner in Doña Ana County, credits the lower death rates in New Mexico to state and local officials’ united message to residents about covid and the need to wear masks and maintain physical distance. “I would like to think we made a difference in saving lives,” Sanchez said.

But, because containing a virus requires community buy-in, even El Paso residents who understood the risks were susceptible to covid. Julie Apodaca, who had recently retired, had been especially careful, in part because her asthma and diabetes put her at increased risk. As the primary caregiver for her elderly mother, she was likely exposed to the virus through one of the nurse caretakers who came to her mother’s home and later tested positive, said her sister Ana Apodaca.

Julie Apodaca had registered for a covid vaccine in December as soon as it was available but had not been able to get an appointment for a shot by the time she fell ill.

Montana found out that Apodaca had been hospitalized the day after her uncle died. One month later, and after 16 days on a ventilator, she too died on March 13.

She was 56.

This story was done in partnership with El Paso Matters, a member-supported, nonpartisan media organization that focuses on in-depth and investigative reporting about El Paso, Texas, Ciudad Juárez across the border in Mexico, and neighboring communities.

Methodology

To analyze covid deaths rates along the border with Mexico, KHN and El Paso Matters requested covid-related death counts by age group and county from Texas, New Mexico, California and Arizona. California and Arizona were unable to fulfill the requests. The Texas Department of State Health Services and the New Mexico Department of Health provided death counts as of Jan. 31, 2021.

Texas’ data included totals by age group for border counties as a group and for the state with no suppression of data. New Mexico provided data for individual counties, and small numbers were suppressed, totaling 1.6% of all deaths in the state. (Data on deaths is commonly suppressed when it involves very small numbers to protect individual identities.)

National death counts by age group were calculated using provisional death data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and included deaths as of Jan. 31, 2021.

Rates were calculated per 100,000 people using the 2019 American Community Survey.

The ethnic breakdown in Texas’ border counties comes from the Census Bureau’s 2019 population estimates.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

USE OUR CONTENT

This story can be republished for free (details).

At Texas Border, Pandemic’s High Toll Lays Bare Gaps in Health and Insurance published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

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toldentops · 7 years

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Why aren't you working on the senjoh region? You should use the senjoh region regularly and the omnis in spare time

Hey! Hi! I’ve been fucking over this before. Jesus christ I do not need someone to tell me how to spend my time. Yes, I know that senjoh is on hiatus and nothing is happening. To tell you the truth, I don’t really have much motivation for senjoh. And for omnis, I don’t have reliable comminucation on the most recent omnis discussions. They use facebook and I don’t have one.

Reminder that I have school. I have homework and finals. I also have commissions to do on flight rising and I would rather spend time doing that. It’s also important to note that I’m not going to run the region by myself. Yes, I’m running the Alker region by myself, but that's different because I know everything about it. The creator of senjoh is on hiatus, and I don't want to do things ahead of them without them knowing. Stop telling me how to manage my time.

You're definitely the same anon from before. Stop messaging me about this shit.

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palossssssand · 2 years

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Lately, I’ve been hard at work building my own fakedex and feel bad having nothing to show for it. Here’s a 4-way split evolution family, each evo is based on a card suit and an insect order that have larvae! Visually inspired by particular families as well :]

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altimux · 7 years

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@alker-region

Look I don’t want to be an ass or anything because you do fantastic work and your ideas on Alker are great. You clearly spent a lot of time on your concepts. I know you’re tired of hearing about it.

I’m not encouraging you to change anything or trying to start a tumblr brawl, but there’s a reason people are angry. While i do see that its a human, the first thing i see is the wheel spoke shape even in the same orientation as such. The swastika has become a symbol of hate, oppression, and mass genocide. It doesn’t help your case that the names of the main characters are German either. If this region was localized as is, a lot of countries would censor it or not distribute it at all merely due to the resemblance. Especially Germany, which you made a point that not all Germany is Nazi (Actually the Nazi symbol is outright banned. [Section 86 and 86a])

The fact that you are publicly saying all asks relating to the shape of the region will be deleted is also rather suspicious.

Also I’m not in this fandom and i felt the need to speak up. Please don’t take this as a callout because my intention is not to defame you or paint you as a monster. I’m aware You’re 15 and i know my place as an adult is not to ridicule you for something. There are also a lot of people who are tense because of the recent camps in Russia as well as a new wave of antisemitism. Its just not possible for people not to see it, and never mind if it is or isn't. If the first thing when people see the region is “it resembles a swastika” there’s clearly something wrong with the design. it could paint you as a Nazi, especially on this blue hellsite. You seem like a decent person and i wouldn’t want that to happen to me, especially something I worked so hard on.

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scarffles · 7 years

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okay if any of my followers love fakemon PLEASE LOVE YOURSELF AND CHECK OUT LIKE... @korzafakemon AND @alker-region

those are the ones that come immediately off the top of my head that are straight-up region tumblrs and not directly someone’s personal blog BUT pls check them out they’re both stunning. the art is amazing and so are the designs I love them immensely

#scarf talks #if either of you blog owners want me to take off the @'s #please tell me and I'll simply link to your blogs!

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newsandmediarepublic · 4 years

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Cornish Slates: promoting the grassroots film community

Cornish Slates: promoting the grassroots film community @CornishSlates @CultivatorCorn @PolyFalmouth #shorts #cornwall #indie #IndieFilm #SupportIndieFilm

Cornish Slates is a screening and networking opportunity for local filmmakers. With its third installment ready to drop, we chatting to organiser Jonny Dry about the set up, the success and the future of film in Cornwall

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#Arts Council England #Cornish Slates #Cornwall #Cornwall Council #Cultivator #european regional development fund #Exeter Phoenix #Falmouth #Falmouth University #Jonny Dray #mark jenkin #Naomi Frears #New Creatives #The Poly #The Silent Child #Zoe Alker

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biofunmy · 5 years

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Share of Americans With Health Insurance Declined in 2018

Fewer Americans are living in poverty, but for the first time in years, more of them lack health insurance.

About 27.5 million people, or 8.5 percent of the population, lacked health insurance for all of 2018, up from 7.9 percent the year before, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday. It was the first increase since the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, and experts said it was at least partly the result of the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine that law.

The growth in the ranks of the uninsured was particularly striking because the economy was doing well. The same report showed the share of Americans living in poverty fell to 11.8 percent, the lowest level since 2001, and household incomes edged up to their highest level on record.

The decline in health coverage reverses improvements since the Affordable Care Act established new insurance markets and financial assistance for millions of Americans who had previously struggled to obtain insurance. Before the passage of the law, more than 15 percent of Americans lacked coverage.

“It’s very frightening in that if this is happening now with unemployment at 3.7 percent, then what’s going to happen when the employer coverage situation gets worse?” said Eliot Fishman, a senior director at the consumer group Families USA and a top Medicaid official in the Obama administration. “There’s a fear we could see really dramatic increases in the uninsured rate if that happens.”

Surveys consistently show that health care is one of the top concerns for voters heading into the 2020 election. And candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, several of whom have promised to extend health insurance to all Americans, are sure to use Tuesday’s figures as evidence that the current system is not working.

Several of them, including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., blamed President Trump’s health care policies for the higher uninsured rate on Tuesday.

The Census Bureau report also had good news for the White House. Poorer households experienced the strongest income gains, a significant reversal after decades of rising inequality and a sign that the recovery is at last delivering income gains to middle-class and low-income families.

The report is the latest evidence that the strong job market is creating opportunities for a wide array of workers, said Michael R. Strain, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

“You’re seeing improvements in employment outcomes for people with disabilities. You’re seeing improvements in employment outcomes for the formerly incarcerated,” Mr. Strain said. “These workers who are potentially more vulnerable, you’re seeing the recovery reach them.”

Democrats, however, are likely to highlight evidence that income gains have slowed since President Barack Obama’s final years in office. Median income grew 5.1 percent in 2015 and 3.1 percent in 2016, compared with less than 1 percent last year.

And while Tuesday’s report showed the benefits of what now ranks as the longest economic expansion on record, it also highlighted the limitations of that growth. Median household income is only modestly higher now than when the recession began in late 2007 and is essentially unchanged since the dot-com bubble burst in 2000.

David Howell, a professor of economics and public policy at the New School in New York, said economic growth in recent years had helped families recover from recession, but had done little to reverse the longer-run stagnation in middle-class incomes. Democrats and Republicans alike, he said, have tapped into the sense among many voters that the economy is not working for them.

“If you look at the long-run trajectory from 1979, it’s pretty disastrous,” Mr. Howell said.

Health insurance

The drop in insurance coverage in 2018 is relatively small compared with the long-term trend, but it suggests that policy changes under the Trump administration, which has been hostile to the health law, have made a difference.

The administration cut back on advertising and enrollment assistance, programs that helped low-income people learn about the new insurance programs, among other changes that may have depressed the number of people signing up for health plans. The government also announced that it might begin counting Medicaid enrollment as a strike against immigrants who are seeking green cards or citizenship — a policy that became final this year. Insurance coverage for Americans of Hispanic origin fell last year, according to the report.

The administration’s decision in 2017 to eliminate a subsidy program contributed to large price increases for health insurance in the Obamacare marketplaces in many parts of the country the next year. Research from the Department of Health and Human Services shows that more than a million Americans who were previously buying their own insurance left the market in 2018.

But the Census Bureau figures show that the main change in the uninsured rate came from declines in Medicaid coverage. Urged by the administration, which expressed concerns about the program’s integrity, several states started asking families to prove their eligibility for Medicaid more often in 2018. The number of Americans covered by Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program fell by more than 1.6 million last year, according to administrative data.

“If you increase red tape you are going to lose people, many of whom are actually eligible for the coverage,” said Joan Alker, a research professor at Georgetown University. She said she was particularly disheartened to see declines in the number of children with health insurance.

But Brian Blase, a former special assistant to Mr. Trump for health care policy, pointed to a recent study suggesting that some Americans who had enrolled in Medicaid in the early years of Obamacare were not eligible for it.

“My sense is in 2018 states probably started tightening eligibility,” said Mr. Blase, who is now president of the consulting and research firm Blase Policy Strategies.

As part of the 2017 tax law, Congress abolished Obamacare’s so-called individual mandate, which required most Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a fine. Technically, the change did not kick in until this year. But analysts believe publicity about the provision may have led fewer people to seek coverage.

Historically, health coverage has tended to increase when the economy grows, since most Americans get insurance through employers. Indeed, before 2018, the uninsured rate had not risen in any year since 2008.

Income and poverty

Income gains have slowed substantially as the economic expansion has matured. But the tepid progress in top-line numbers hides positive trends under the surface.

“You continue to see some progress for households in 2018, especially in the bottom of the income distribution as they benefited from a tighter economy,” said Jason Furman, who was chairman of Mr. Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. “But the pace of that progress seems to have slowed relative to past years.”

Median household income, the level at which half of households make more money and half make less, rose to about $63,200 in 2018 from $62,600 the year before. The change was so small that it was not statistically important. The Census Bureau made major tweaks to its methodology in 2013, making comparisons to earlier years difficult; by some estimates, household incomes remain below their 1999 peak.

Some of the pullback in income gains was to be expected. Increases earlier in the recovery were driven by people returning to work; for example, households where only one person worked outside the home might have become two-earner homes.

Now, with the unemployment rate near a five-decade low, household income gains must rely more heavily on raises for existing employees, said Ernie Tedeschi, an economist at Evercore ISI.

At an individual level, pay did climb by some measures. Among full-time, year-round workers, inflation-adjusted earnings rose more than 3 percent for both men and women.

And as some workers take home fatter paychecks, it is helping to even out inequality, if only slightly. Incomes grew more for poorer households last year, adjusted for household size. Poverty fell for households with children headed by women, and the black poverty rate was the lowest ever reported — though it is still more than double the white poverty rate.

There has been a “theme of the recovery finally seeping down to the most marginal workers and families in America,” and “you see that in 2018,” Mr. Tedeschi said.

The report’s income statistics are pretax, so they do not directly reflect Mr. Trump’s tax cut package, which took effect last year. The Tax Foundation has estimated that richer households probably saw the greatest decrease in taxes because of the changes.

A separate report this week, from the Government Accountability Office, found that wealthy Americans were far more likely to live to old age than their poorer neighbors. Other recent research has found that gap has been growing.

Altogether, 38 million people were living in poverty. The poverty rate has fallen relatively steadily since 2010, when it topped 15 percent. Among children, the poverty rate was 16.2 percent, also down from 2017.

The Trump administration applauded that progress.

Pro-worker policies are “unleashing the private sector and achieving historical gains for the most disadvantaged Americans,” Tomas J. Philipson, acting chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said in a statement.

But a broader measure that is often preferred by economists tells a less positive story. The headline poverty figures count the number of people living in households that earn below a certain threshold: about $20,000 for a family of three in 2018.

A supplementary poverty rate, which takes into account regional differences in the cost of living and government benefits such as housing assistance and the earned-income tax credit, was 13.1 percent in 2018, little changed from 2017. More seniors and fewer children are poor under that measure.

Government programs, particularly Social Security, the earned-income tax credit and the nutrition-assistance program formerly known as food stamps, kept tens of millions of people out of poverty, the report noted.

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