Are Americans out of poverty?

 

The child tax credit helped push a key measure of poverty to its lowest level on record, according to new Census Bureau data Tuesday that signaled just how critical government assistance was to propping Americans up in the second year of the coronavirus pandemic.

Median income remained essentially static in 2021, and the official poverty rate did as well. But the Supplemental Poverty Measure, which adjusts for government assistance like tax credits and stimulus checks, dropped 1.4 percentage points to 7.8%.

For children, who benefitted from the child tax credit, the fall was even more dramatic, from 9.7% to 5.2% — also a record low. Bureau analysts said almost all of that was due to the tax credit. The data covers President Biden’s first year in office as he tried to put his imprint on the pandemic response.

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Americans make up less than 5% of the world’s population while earning more than 20% of the world’s total income. Despite this, one in 10 Americans lives in poverty still.

Among households headed by African Americans or single females, rates of re-entry within four years are 46 to 50 percent. Exit probabilities fall as the duration of the poverty spell increases.

Nearly half of the people answering a survey from the U.S. federal government said they would struggle to come up with $400 for an emergency.