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Poverty in the United States

Proportion of Americans living below the poverty line in each county of the fifty states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico according to the 2016–2020 American Community Survey
Number in Poverty and Poverty Rate: 1959 to 2017. The US.

In the United States, poverty has both social and political implications. In 2020, there were 37.2 million people in poverty.[1] Some of the many causes include income, inequality,[needs update][2] inflation, unemployment, debt traps and poor education.[needs update][3] The majority of adults living in poverty are employed and have at least a high school education.[4] Although the US is a relatively wealthy country by international standards,[5] it has a persistently high poverty rate compared to other developed countries due in part to a less generous welfare system.[4]

Efforts to alleviate poverty include New Deal-era legislation during the Great Depression, to the national war on poverty in the 1960s and poverty alleviation efforts during the 2008 Great Recession. The federal government has two departments which measure poverty. Under the Department of Commerce, the Census Bureau has been reporting the Official Poverty Measure (OPM) since the 1960s, while the Department of Health and Human Services defines income levels for which people are eligible for governmental anti-poverty assistance. The OPM includes cash assistance from programs like Supplemental Security Income and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (Welfare) as part of someone's income when reporting on how many people are in poverty. Since 2011 the Census Bureau has also been reporting a newer Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), which includes non-cash anti-poverty government assistance like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Food stamps) and Medicaid (health care for the poor), and also accounts for regional differences in the cost of living.[6][7] The SPM is considered a more comprehensive estimate of poverty.[8]

For 2021, the percentage of Americans in poverty per the SPM was 7.8%, and per the OPM was 11.6%.[9][10] By the OPM, the poverty threshold for 2021 for a single person was $13,800, and for a family of four was $27,700.[9] In 2020, the World Bank reported that 0.25% of Americans lived below the international definition of extreme poverty, which is living on less than $2.15 per day in 2017 Purchasing Power Parity dollars.[11][12] The SPM increased by 4.6% in 2022 to 12.4%, due to the ending of pandemic stimulus payments and tax credits,[13][14] with around 15.3 million Americans falling into poverty over this time period according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.[14]

The 2020 assessment by the U.S. Census Bureau showed the percentage of Americans living in poverty for 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic) had fallen to some of the lowest levels ever recorded due to the record-long period of economic growth.[15] However, between May and October 2020, some eight million people were put into poverty due to the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ending of funds from the CARES Act.[16]

  1. ^ "National Poverty in America Awareness Month: January 2022". Census.gov. Retrieved July 15, 2022.
  2. ^ Adams, R. H., (2004). Economic growth, inequality, and poverty: Estimating the growth elasticity of poverty, World Development 32(12), p. 1989-2014.
  3. ^ Western, B. & Pettit, B., (2010). Incarceration and social inequality. Daedalus, 139(3), 8-19
  4. ^ a b Brady, David (August 25, 2023). "Poverty, not the poor". Science Advances. 9 (34): eadg1469. Bibcode:2023SciA....9G1469B. doi:10.1126/sciadv.adg1469. ISSN 2375-2548. PMC 10446494. PMID 37611106.
  5. ^ Zweig, Michael (2004). What's Class Got to do With It? : Society in the U.S.A. in the Twenty-first Century. ILR Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-8899-3.
  6. ^ "About the Supplemental Poverty Measure". Retrieved August 29, 2023.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference CRS_SPM was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Matthews, Dylan (March 10, 2023). "Why even brilliant scholars misunderstand poverty in America". Vox. Retrieved July 22, 2023.
  9. ^ a b "Poverty in the United States: 2021". Census Bureau. September 13, 2022.
  10. ^ Rank, Mark Robert (2023). The Poverty Paradox: Understanding Economic Hardship Amid American Prosperity. Oxford University Press. p. 15. ISBN 978-0190212636.
  11. ^ "Fact Sheet: An Adjustment to Global Poverty Lines". World Bank. Retrieved April 27, 2023.
  12. ^ "Country Profile: United States". World Bank. Retrieved April 27, 2023.
  13. ^ "Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2022". census.gov. September 12, 2023. Retrieved September 15, 2023. The Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) rate in 2022 was 12.4%, an increase of 4.6 percentage points from 2021. This increase can be attributed to 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. This is the first increase in the overall SPM poverty rate since 2010.
  14. ^ a b Picchi, Aimee (September 12, 2023). "America's poverty rate soared last year. Children were among the worst hit". CBS News. Retrieved September 15, 2023.
  15. ^ Cite error: The named reference NPR_2020-09-15 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference :5 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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