New Census Data on Poverty

September 13, 2024

Census data on poverty rates from 2023 were just released. A press release from the Institute for Policy Studies states that the new information “shows the consequences of failing to apply lessons from the pandemic’s anti-poverty measures.” Poverty rates remain high relative to the progress made in 2021, and the new report “underscores the clear impact of enacting and then failing to renew effective solutions to reduce poverty.”

Census data show that in 2021, 45 million fewer people were living in poverty than in 2020. Child poverty had been cut in half due to the expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC), resulting in a record-low child poverty rate of just over 5 percent. But 2022 and 2023 both showed dramatic and preventable spikes in poverty, especially child poverty. 

KAREN DOLAN; to schedule an interview, contact IPS Deputy Communications Director Olivia Alperstein at (202) 704-9011 or olivia@ips-dc.org 
    Dolan is Project Director of the Criminalization of Race and Poverty Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. 

Dolan told the Institute for Public Accuracy: “We know how to reduce poverty. We did it in 2021, and we’ve refused to do it since––so millions of people are suffering, especially children. The worst effects of poverty fall on children. When children live in poverty, that is detrimental to them in the long term. Their whole lives are affected; they experience adverse mental health consequences, adverse health consequences, adverse educational and employment outcomes. It’s unforgivable. We brought child poverty down to a historic low in 2021, and then we allowed it to more than double in every year since. Conservatives and two Democrats [in Congress] decided children didn’t deserve to live healthy, thriving lives. 

“When we give sufficient nutritional support, income support, rental and unemployment assistance, we reduce poverty. Simply by refusing to extend the expanded CTC, child poverty spiked twice and continues to rise. Conservatives in Congress refused not only to extend programs but also cut and eroded them. This is all completely preventable. It’s easy to do, it’s cost effective, we know how to do it, and in the long run, the returns are enormous. We cannot afford not to do it. There’s a perversion that [claims these programs] cost too much. But [Congress] is set to extend the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy, and we have this bloated military budget. It’s a question of priorities. We’re prioritizing the rich over children and families.”

Dolan emphasized that the female to male income ratio is also at a historic high not seen since 2003. “Incomes rose across income brackets,” she said, “although they stayed the same for Latinx and black households. Though incomes rose for both male and female full-time year-round workers, incomes rose 3 percent for males and only 1.5 percent for females. That increases the male-female pay disparity pretty substantially.

“We did see gains in the Affordable Care Act’s Premium Tax Credit, which helped Latinx and black people the most. That’s one piece of the social safety net that was extended through the Inflation Reduction Act––but only extended to 2025. If Congress doesn’t renew the extension, 4 million people will lose health insurance, and those people are overwhelmingly black and Latinx… We won’t know [specifics] until after the election, but 2025 is the year of taxes. That’s when the Trump tax cuts run out, and when the remaining safety net provisions also run out. 2025 is going to be an extremely important year. 

“If just the 2021 expanded CTC were extended, and nothing else, the child poverty rate would be 8.6 percent instead of 13.7. That shows just how important these policies are. When you only invest in corporations and the wealthy, you starve everyone else and you only add extra yachts to those who already have several. An expanded CTC also benefits the middle class. We think about social safety net investments as being for the most destitute among us, but it’s not––it’s closer to half the population. When you think of struggling people as those who are one paycheck away from financial disaster, you’re talking about 140 million people. These are programs that benefit all of us, and we should all be interested in them. 

“Policies that invest in families and children are getting too little attention. The headlines aren’t about the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program getting cut, or school meals getting cut. It’s like women and children don’t exist. [The media] should talk about political will and where we’re deciding to put our investments. Are we investing in rich people’s yachts and tax-dodging corporations and huge military defense contractors who are raking in the big bucks, or are we investing in children, families, communities, and the environment? It should be a very clear choice. People don’t like giveaways to the rich, and they don’t like overspending on defense contractors. But the media doesn’t always cover it that way. They say ‘this would be so expensive.’ But they’re not talking about the returns on [these policies]. We’re not talking about priorities in the right way, and neither is the media.”