A smaller share of Americans lives below the poverty line today than when the Census Bureau first started measuring this metric in 1959. The people who are most at risk of poverty in the U.S. have remained the same during this time period: Single mothers and people of color. However, the poverty gap between population groups has narrowed.
According to the data, 11.5 percent of Americans lived under the poverty line in 2022, the latest year available. This is a slight step up from the pre-pandemic number of 10.5 percent in 2019, but below rates of the Great Recession (15.1 percent percent in 2010), the 1990s recession (also 15.1 percent in 1993) and those of the early and mid-1960s (17-22 percent). Taking into account refined measures of people's needs and costs but also tax credits and other non-cash benefits (as represented by the Supplemental Poverty Measure), the rate of poor Americans in 2022 was actually slightly higher at 12.4 percent. This number also represents a slight increase from before the pandemic, but is a significant departure from the adjusted rate during Covid-19, when special tax credits let the 'real' SPM poverty rate tumble as low as 7.8 percent in 2021.
People of color in the U.S. remain disproportionately affected by poverty: 17.1 percent of Black Americans lived under the poverty line in 2022, as did 16.9 percent of Hispanics. The same was true for just 8.6 percent of white people. The share of poor people of other races or multiple races, the latter being a designation added by the Census in 2002, was 11.5 percent - in line with the U.S. average. The most common race among this group was Asian American.
Single mothers and their family members, or as the Census puts it - people in families with female householder, no spouse present - have been most affected by poverty in the U.S. throughout the latter half of the last century and into today. But the group has also seen the most progress made. Poverty of single female householders and their families decreased from a nearly 50-percent share in 1959, when being a single mother was still heavily stigmatized, to a arguably still high 25 percent in 2022.
The advent of the U.S. social safety net had a visible effect on poverty in 1964 when the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson introduced food stamps, community health centers and the Head Start program. Expansion of government programs, including Medicaid and Medicare, have been credited with reducing U.S. poverty since then - albeit at a slower pace. The metric decreased overall, while the state of the economy also had an influence through the years, most notably causing poverty to spike during recessions.
