The percentage of U.S. children and all Americans living in poverty declined from 2017 to 2021, according to newly released Census Bureau data.
The bureau’s latest American Community Survey, a population trends analysis that informs the spending of $675 billion in federal funds, found the poverty rate for all people decreased from 15.1% in 2012-2016 to 12.6% in 2017-2021.
The national child poverty rate fell from 21.2% to 17.0% over the same period, remaining 4.4 percentage points higher than the overall rate. The family poverty rate dropped from 11% to 8.9%.
“A family and each individual member of that family are considered in poverty if the family’s before-tax money income is less than the dollar value of its threshold,” Craig Benson, a Census Bureau survey statistician, wrote in a summary of the data.