The sweeping financial assistance Congress provided to Americans earlier in the Covid-19 pandemic kept millions from sliding into poverty during the worst economic fallout from the crisis, new census figures show.
The U.S. poverty rate rose in 2020 after five years of annual declines, according to data released by the Census Bureau this week. But the broader Supplemental Poverty Measure, which factors in some expenses and accounts for a wider range of income—including hundreds of billions of dollars in pandemic aid—dropped to a record low 9.1%, marking the first time that yardstick has fallen below the official poverty rate.
