A second year of emergency pandemic aid from the federal government drove poverty to the lowest level on record in 2021 and cut the number of poor children by nearly half, the Census Bureau reported yesterday, the New York Times reported. The poverty rate fell to 7.8 percent, down from 9.2 percent the previous year, according to the Supplemental Poverty Measure, a yardstick that includes wages, taxes and the fullest account of government aid. In addition, the share of children living in poverty sank to another record low of 5.2 percent, down 4.5 percentage points from 2020, an acceleration of a long-term trend. The share of people with health insurance at any point during the year rose slightly, to 91.7 percent. In large part, those changes reflect the trillions of stimulus dollars approved by Congress, culminating in the American Rescue Plan of March 2021. Real median household income reached $70,800, not significantly different from 2020, as increases in full-time employment were offset by rising inflation and decreases in unemployment insurance, which had been supplemented above normal levels through the summer of 2021. The “official” poverty rate, generally considered outdated because it omits hundreds of billions spent on programs like tax credits and housing assistance, also did not change significantly from the previous year. The official poverty rate was 11.6 percent last year, but the supplemental rate — which accounts for the impact of government programs — fell to 7.8 percent.
