Child poverty rates have increased in the U.S. despite rising incomes, the Census Bureau has announced.
Overall, the percentage of Americans experiencing poverty fell from 11.5 percent to 11.1 percent between 2022 and 2023, with about 36.8 million people struggling to meet basic needs, according to a Census Bureau report released on September 10. The percentage of Americans under the age of 18 living in poverty has increased, from 15 percent to 15.3 percent—the only age group to experience a statistically significant increase, the bureau found.
In the same period, real median household incomes increased by 4 percent, a separate report released by the bureau showed. In 2023, the real median household income was estimated at $80,610, up from $77,540 in 2022.
The child poverty rate, as measured by the supplemental poverty measure, was slightly lower—13.7 percent—but still a far cry from the measure’s lowest-ever childhood poverty recording of 5.2 percent in 2021, when financial assistance, such as expanded child tax credits, was in place during the coronavirus pandemic.
A stock image of a child eating. In 2023, the official poverty rate fell 0.4 percentage points to 11.1 percent.
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Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy previously reported that about 6.2 million more children were living below the poverty line in 2023 than in 2021, when the rate was at a historic low.
“Enacting robust policies to drive down poverty and further expand health coverage should be a national priority,” said Sharon Parrott, the president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), in a statement. “In 2021, the expanded Child Tax Credit and other pandemic relief drove child poverty to just 5.2 percent, the lowest level ever recorded. Research across decades finds that cutting poverty among children not only reduces near-term hardship, but is associated with better health, education, and earnings outcomes for children later in life.”
On August 1, Senate Republicans blocked the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act. If passed, it would have enhanced access to the child tax credit via a gradual rise in the refundable segment for the years 2023, 2024 and 2025, and it would have removed penalties for larger families.
The CBPP reported that more than one in five U.S. children would have been affected had the legislation come to fruition, with more than 16 million benefiting in the first year of such an expansion.
The Census Bureau report also found disparities in income changes among different demographic groups. Real median household incomes increased by 5.4 percent for white households and by 5.7 percent for non-Hispanic white households between 2022 and 2023. There was no significant change in median incomes for Black, Asian or Hispanic households.
In 2023, the Census Bureau released a report that found overall poverty rates had jumped from 7.8 percent in 2021 to 12.4 percent in 2022 following the end of other pandemic-era assistance packages.
