Introduction

Calendar year 2019 was the last full year before the start of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, and the last year of the economic expansion since the Great Recession. The strength of the U.S. economy in 2019 was reflected in low poverty rates—the percentage of the population living in poverty (economic hardship characterized by low income)—for the nation and by demographic group. This report presents poverty data for the United States over time, as well as by demographic group (family structure, age, race and Hispanic origin, and work status) and state for 2019. The numbers presented in the report are estimates, based on a survey (discussed below).

The official, annual data on income and poverty are measured retrospectively by a Census Bureau survey conducted in February, March, and April of the following year.¹ Most of the survey data collection for 2019 took place in March 2020, after the COVID-19 pandemic had begun and when social distancing measures were beginning to be implemented. As a result, any interviews that would have been conducted in person, by a field representative visiting respondents at their homes, were conducted by telephone only.² The switch to telephone-only interviewing contributed to a lower response rate, which affected the estimates.³ Further, the persons who did not respond were more likely to have had low incomes than high incomes.⁴ This drop in survey response tempers the conclusions that may be drawn from the data.

The estimated official poverty rate in 2019 was measured at a seemingly record-low 10.5%. After taking account of survey bias—in this case, the artificially lower poverty rates caused by higher nonresponse among those with low incomes than those with high incomes—the U.S. poverty rate was estimated to have been 11.1% in 2019 (tying the previous low of 11.1% in 1973).⁵ That is, while poverty was indeed low in 2019, it was likely not as low as the official estimates suggest, due to nonresponse bias. The information in this report necessarily uses the official estimates. Detailed experimental estimates that adjust for nonresponse bias specific to the pandemic are not available for the characteristics discussed in the report.

Bearing the above caveats in mind, in 2019 approximately 34 million people had incomes below the official definition of poverty in the United States, which was a decline from 38 million people in 2018. The poverty rate fell to 10.5% from 11.8%. This was the fifth consecutive year that the poverty rate fell. The decline in poverty was broad based, affecting many demographic groups and occurring in every region of the country (discussed below).

The numbers and percentages of those in poverty presented in this report are based on the Census Bureau's estimates.⁶ While this official measure is often regarded as a statistical yardstick rather than a complete description of what people and families need to live,⁷ it does offer a measure of economic hardship faced by the low-income population: the poverty measure compares family income against a dollar amount called a poverty threshold, a level below which the family is considered to be poor. The Census Bureau releases these poverty estimates every September for the prior calendar year. Most of the comparisons discussed in this report are year-to-year. The report only considers a number or percentage to have changed from the previous year, or to be different from another number or percentage, if the difference has been tested to be statistically significant at the 90% confidence level.⁸

Over the past several decades, criticisms of the official poverty measure have led to the development of an alternative research measure called the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), which the Census Bureau also computes and releases. Statistics comparing the official measure with the SPM are provided at the conclusion of this report.

The SPM includes adjustments to reflect geographic variations in housing costs, and the estimated effects of taxes and in-kind benefits (such as housing, energy, and food assistance) on poverty, while the official measure does not. Because some types of tax credits and noncash benefits provide financial help to families and individuals in poverty, the SPM may be of interest to policymakers. However, the official measure provides a comparison of the poor population over a longer period, including some years before many current antipoverty assistance programs had been developed. In developing poverty-related legislation and conducting oversight on programs that aid the low-income population, policymakers may be interested in these historical trends.

How the Official Poverty Measure is Computed

The Census Bureau determines a person's poverty status by comparing his or her resources against a measure of need. For the official measure, resources is defined as total family income before taxes, and the measure of need is a dollar amount called a poverty threshold. There are 48 poverty thresholds that vary by family size and composition. If a person lives with other people to whom he or she is related by birth, marriage, or adoption, the money income from all family members is used to determine his or her poverty status. If a person does not live with any family members, his or her own income is used. Only money income before taxes is used in calculating the official poverty measure, meaning this measure does not treat in-kind benefits such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps), housing subsidies, or employer-provided benefits as income.

The poverty threshold dollar amounts vary by the size of the family (from one person not living in a family, to nine or more family members living together) and the ages of the family members (how many of the members are children under 18 and whether or not the family head is 65 or older). Collectively, these poverty thresholds are often referred to as the poverty line. As a rough guide, the poverty line in 2019 can be thought of as $26,172 for a family of four, $20,335 for a family of three, $16,521 for a family of two, or $13,011 for an individual not living in a family, though the official measure is actually much more detailed.⁹

The threshold dollar amounts are updated annually for inflation using the Consumer Price Index. Notably, the same thresholds are applied throughout the country: no adjustment is made for geographic variations in living expenses.¹⁰

The official poverty measure used in this report is the federal government's definition of poverty for statistical purposes, such as comparing the number or percentage in poverty over time. A related definition of poverty, the poverty guidelines published by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is used for administrative purposes such as eligibility criteria for assistance programs and will not be discussed in this report.¹¹

Historical Perspective

Figure 1 shows a historical perspective of the number and percentage of the population below the poverty line. The number in poverty and the poverty rates are shown from the earliest year available (1959) through the most recent year available (2019). Because the total U.S. population has grown over time, poverty rates are useful for historical comparisons because they control for population growth.

Poverty rates fell through the 1960s. Since then, they have generally risen and fallen according to the economic cycle, though during the two most recent expansions poverty rates did not fall measurably until four to six years into the expansion. Historically notable lows occurred in 1973 (11.1%), 2000 (11.3%), and 2019 (10.5%).¹² Poverty rate peaks occurred in 1983 (15.2%), 1993 (15.1%), and 2010 (15.1%).¹³

Poverty rates tend to rise during and after recessions, as opposed to leading economic indicators such as new housing construction, whose changes often precede changes in the performance of the overall economy. The poverty rate's lag is explainable in part by the way it is measured: it uses income from the entire calendar year.

Figure 1. Number of Persons in Poverty and Poverty Rate: 1959 to 2019 (Poverty rates in percentages, number of persons in millions. Shaded bars indicate recessions)

Source: Congressional Research Service (CRS), based on poverty data from Table B-5 of Jessica Semega, Melissa Kollar, Emily A. Shrider, and John F. Creamer, Income and Poverty in the United States: 2019, U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports number P60-270, issued September 2020. Notes: The 2019 estimates were biased downward because of increased nonresponse associated with telephone-only interviewing during the pandemic; for details, see the "Introduction" section. Two estimates are shown for 2013 because the Census Bureau implemented a change to the CPS ASEC income questions. Some households received the old questionnaire and others the new, so that it would be possible to see the effect of changing the questionnaire. The CPS ASEC processing system was also updated for 2017. Those updates did not affect the overall poverty rate, nor the poverty rates for children or the population aged 18-64, though the 2017 poverty rate for the aged was 0.3 percentage points higher than under the legacy system. For details, see John Creamer and Ashley Edwards, Examining Poverty in 2016 and 2017 Using the Legacy and Updated Current Population Survey Processing System, U.S. Census Bureau, Social, Economic, and Housing Statistics Division, Working Paper #2019-28, July 30, 2019, https://www.census.gov/library/working-papers/2019/demo/SEHSD-WP2019-28.html.

Poverty by Demographic Group

Declines in poverty rates between 2018 and 2019 occurred among many demographic groups rather than being concentrated among a few groups. Both sexes, multiple racial groups, children and working-age adults, and full-time workers and nonworkers all experienced declines in their poverty rates. Given the nonresponse bias explained in the "Introduction" section, the discussion below will focus only on those groups with especially large¹⁴ decreases in their poverty rates, to avoid overstating how widely the decreases in poverty were felt.

Family Structure

Because poverty status is determined at the family level by comparing resources against a measure of need, vulnerability to poverty may differ among families of different compositions. In this section, poverty data by family structure are presented using the official poverty measure, with families defined as persons related by birth, marriage, or adoption to the householder (the person in whose name the home is owned or rented). In the "Supplemental Poverty Measure" section of this report, a different definition will be used.

In general, women have higher poverty rates than men: 11.5% compared with 9.4% in 2019. Both sexes experienced poverty rate declines from 2018 (from 12.9% for women and 10.6% for men). Historically, families with a female householder and no spouse present (female-householder families) have had higher poverty rates than both married-couple families and families with a male householder and no spouse present (male-householder families). This remained true in 2019: the poverty rate among female-householder families was 22.2%, compared with 11.5% for male-householder families and 4.0% for married-couple families (Figure 2).

Female-householder families, unlike male-householder families, experienced a decline of 2.6 percentage points in their poverty rate from 2018. The 2019 poverty rate for female-householder families was the lowest reported for that group. Even though nonresponse affected low-income families more than high-income families, and female-householder families are more likely to be low income than the other family types, the 2019 poverty rate is the latest in a series of low poverty rates for this group, compared with previous decades.

Persons not living in families experienced a poverty rate decline as well, from 20.2% in 2018 to 18.8% in 2019.

Figure 2. Poverty Rates of Families by Family Structure: 2019 (Poverty rates in percentages)

Source: Congressional Research Service (CRS), based on poverty data from Table B-2 of Jessica Semega, Melissa Kollar, Emily A. Shrider, and John F. Creamer, Income and Poverty in the United States: 2019, U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports number P60-270, issued September 2020. Notes: The poverty rates above include only families with a householder (the survey's reference person for the household; typically the person in whose name the home is owned or rented). The Census Bureau defines a family as those living together related by birth, marriage, or adoption.

Age

When examining poverty by age, the three main groups (under 18, 18 to 64, and 65 and older) are noteworthy for distinct reasons. People under age 18 are typically dependent on other family members for income, particularly young children below their state's legal working age. People aged 18 to 64 are generally thought of as the working-age population and typically have wages and salaries as their greatest source of income. People aged 65 and older, referred to as the aged population, are often eligible for retirement, and those who do retire typically experience a change in their primary source of income.

As shown in Figure 3, children and the working-age population experienced decreases in poverty. Among children, 10.5 million, or 14.4%, were poor, down from 11.9 million, or 16.2%, in 2018. Among the working-age population, 18.9 million, or 9.4%, were in poverty, down from 21.1 million, or 10.7%, in 2018.

In earlier years, the poverty rate for those aged 65 and over was the highest of the three age groups. In 1966, people aged 65 and over had a poverty rate of 28.5%, compared with 17.6% for those under 18 and 10.5% for working-age adults. By 1974, the poverty rate for people aged 65 and over had fallen to 14.6%, compared with 15.4% for people under 18 and 8.3% for working-age adults. Since then, people under 18 have had the highest poverty rate of the three groups, while the poverty rate among the 65-and-older population had fallen to 8.9% by 2019.

Figure 3. Poverty Rates by Age: 1959 to 2019 (Poverty rates in percentages. Shaded bars indicate recessions)

Source: Congressional Research Service (CRS), based on poverty data from Table B-6 of Jessica Semega, Melissa Kollar, Emily A. Shrider, and John F. Creamer, Income and Poverty in the United States: 2019, U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports number P60-270, issued September 2020. Notes: The 2019 estimates were biased downward because of increased nonresponse associated with telephone-only interviewing during the pandemic; for details, see the "Introduction" section. Data are not available from 1960 to 1965 for persons aged 65 and older and for persons aged 18 to 64. Two estimates are shown for 2013 for each age group because the Census Bureau implemented a change to the CPS ASEC income questions. Some households received the old questionnaire and others the new, so that it would be possible to see the effect of changing the questionnaire. The CPS ASEC processing system was also updated for 2017. Those updates did not affect the overall poverty rate, nor the poverty rates for children or the population aged 18-64, though the 2017 poverty rate for the aged was 0.3 percentage points higher than under the legacy system. For details, see John Creamer and Ashley Edwards, Examining Poverty in 2016 and 2017 Using the Legacy and Updated Current Population Survey Processing System, U.S. Census Bureau, Social, Economic, and Housing Statistics Division, Working Paper #2019-28, July 30, 2019, https://www.census.gov/library/working-papers/2019/demo/SEHSD-WP2019-28.html.

Race and Hispanic Origin¹⁵

Poverty rates vary by race and Hispanic origin, as shown in Figure 4. In surveys, Hispanic origin is asked about separately from race; accordingly, people identifying as Hispanic may be of any race. Among the racial and Hispanic origin groups with populations large enough to estimate given the sample size of the CPS ASEC, every one experienced a statistically significant decline in its poverty rates from 2018 to 2019. Among the White non-Hispanic population, the poverty rate fell from 8.1% to 7.3%; among the Black population,¹⁶ from 20.8% to 18.8%; among the Asian population,¹⁷ from 10.1% to 7.3%; and among the Hispanic population, from 17.6% to 15.7%.

Figure 4. Poverty Rates by Race and Hispanic Origin: 2019 (Poverty rates in percentages)

Source: Congressional Research Service (CRS), based on poverty data from Table B-1 of Jessica Semega, Melissa Kollar, Emily A. Shrider, and John F. Creamer, Income and Poverty in the United States: 2019, U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports number P60-270, issued September 2020. Notes: People of Hispanic origin may be of any race. Additionally, respondents may identify with one or more racial groups. Except for "All persons" and "Hispanic," the remaining groups shown include those who identified with one race only. The "non-Hispanic White alone" group includes only the White non-Hispanic population, the "Black alone" group includes Blacks of Hispanic origin, and the "Asian alone" group includes Asians of Hispanic origin. Data for Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders, American Indians and Alaska Natives, and the population of two or more races are not shown separately.

Work Status

While having a job reduced the likelihood of being in poverty, it did not guarantee that a person or his or her family would avoid poverty. Among the population aged 18 to 64 living in poverty, 39.2% had jobs in 2019. Poverty rates among workers in this age group were 4.7% for all workers, 2.0% for full-time year-round workers (down from 2.3% in 2018), and 12.0% for part-time or part-year workers. Among those who did not work at least one week in 2019, 26.4% were poor (down from 29.7% in 2018).

Because poverty is a family-based measure, a change in one member's work status can affect the poverty status of his or her entire family. Among all 18- to 64-year-olds who did not have jobs in 2019, 61.4% lived in families in which someone else did have a job.¹⁸ Among 18- to 64-year-olds with income below the poverty line and without jobs, 19.2% lived in families where someone else worked.¹⁹

Poverty Rates by State²⁰

Poverty is not equally prevalent in all parts of the country. Figure 5 shows states with relatively high poverty rates across parts of the Appalachians, the Southwest, and the Deep South. Mississippi's poverty rate (19.6%), seemingly the highest, was not statistically different from Louisiana's (19.0%). The poverty rate in New Hampshire (7.3%) was the lowest. When comparing poverty rates geographically, the official poverty thresholds are not adjusted for geographic variations in the cost of living—the same thresholds are used nationwide. As such, an area with a lower cost of living accompanied by lower wages will appear to have a higher poverty rate than an area with a higher cost of living and higher wages, even if individuals' purchasing power were exactly the same in both areas.

Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia experienced statistically significant declines in their poverty rates compared to 2018: three in the Northeast (Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode Island), seven in the Midwest (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio, and Wisconsin), nine states (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia) plus the District of Columbia in the South, and four in the West (California, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington).

Figure 5. Percentage of People in Poverty in the Past 12 Months by State and for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico: 2019 (Poverty rates in percentages)

Source: Congressional Research Service, based on data from Craig Benson, Poverty: 2018 and 2019, U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey Brief ACSBR/20-04, Table 1, issued September 2020, at https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/acs/acsbr20-04.html. Notes: Data by state are based on the ACS while national-level data presented elsewhere in this report are based on the CPS ASEC. The ACS reported a poverty rate of 12.3% for the United States in 2019, compared with 10.5% in the CPS ASEC. See footnote 20 for further details.

Supplemental Poverty Measure

Criticisms of the official poverty measure led to the development of the SPM. Described below are the development of the official measure, its limitations, attempts to remedy those limitations, the research efforts that eventually led to the SPM's first release in November 2011, and a comparison of poverty rates in 2019 based on the SPM and the official measure.²¹

How the Official Poverty Measure Was Developed

The poverty thresholds were originally developed in the early 1960s by Mollie Orshansky of the Social Security Administration. Rather than attempt to compute a family budget by using prices for all essential items that low-income families need to live, Orshansky focused on food costs.²² Unlike other goods and services such as housing or transportation, which did not have a generally agreed-upon level of adequacy, minimum standards for nutrition were known and widely accepted. According to a 1955 U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) food consumption survey, the average amount of their income that families spent on food was roughly one-third. Therefore, using the cost of a minimum food budget and multiplying that figure by three yielded a figure for total family income. That computation was possible because USDA had already published recommended food budgets as a way to address the nutritional needs of families experiencing economic stress. Some additional adjustments were made to derive poverty thresholds for two-person families and individuals not living in families to reflect the relatively higher fixed costs of smaller households.

Motivation for a Supplemental Measure

While the official poverty measure has been used for over 50 years as the source of official statistics on poverty in the United States, it has received criticism over the years for several reasons. First, it does not take into account benefits from most of the largest programs that aid the low-income population. For instance, it uses money income before taxes—meaning that it does not necessarily measure the income available for individuals to spend, which for most people is after-tax income. Therefore, any effects of tax credits designed to assist persons with low income are not captured by the official measure. The focus on money income also does not account for in-kind benefit programs designed to help the poor, such as SNAP or housing assistance.

The official measure has also been criticized for the way it characterizes families' and individuals' needs in the poverty thresholds. That is, the method used to compute the dollar amounts used in the thresholds, which were originally based on food expenditures in the 1950s and food costs in the 1960s, does not accurately reflect current needs and available goods and services.²³ The official measure also does not take account of the sharing of expenses and income among household members not related by birth, marriage, or adoption. And, as mentioned earlier, the official thresholds do not take account of geographic variations in the cost of living.

In 1995, a panel from the National Academy of Sciences issued a report, Measuring Poverty: A New Approach, which recommended improvements to the poverty measure.²⁴ Among the suggested improvements were to have the poverty thresholds reflect the costs of food, clothing, shelter, utilities, and a little bit extra to allow for miscellaneous needs; to broaden the definition of family; to include geographic adjustments as part of the measure's computation; to include the out-of-pocket costs of medical expenses in the measure's computation; and to subtract work-related expenses from income. An overarching goal of the recommendations was to make the poverty measure more closely aligned with the real-life needs and available resources of the low-income population, as well as the changes that have taken place over time in their circumstances, owing to changes in the nation's economy, society, and public policies (see Table 1).

After over a decade and a half of research to implement and refine the methodology suggested by the panel, conducted both from within the Census Bureau as well as by other federal agencies and the academic community, the Census Bureau issued the first report using the SPM in November 2011.²⁵

Official and Supplemental Poverty Findings for 2019²⁶

Compared with the official measure, the SPM takes into account greater detail of individuals' and families' living arrangements and provides a more up-to-date accounting of the costs and resources available to them. Because the SPM recognizes greater detail in relationships among household members and geographically adjusts housing costs, it provides an updated rendering, compared with the official measure, of the circumstances in which the poor live. In that context, some point out that the SPM's measurement of taxes, transfers, and expenses may offer policymakers a clearer view of how government policies affect the poor population today. However, the SPM was developed as a research measure, and the Office of Management and Budget set the expectation that it would be revised periodically to incorporate improved measurement methods and newer sources of data as they became available; it was not developed for administrative purposes. The fact that tax liabilities and credits are modeled, or that in-kind benefits are estimated using limited data, can be useful to bear in mind when comparing SPM estimates with official poverty estimates, or when any changes to the SPM methodology become implemented in the future.²⁷ Conversely, the official measure's consistency over a longer time span makes it easier for policymakers and researchers to make historical comparisons.

Under the SPM, the profile of the poverty population is slightly different than under the official measure. The SPM poverty rate was 1.3 percentage points higher (after rounding) in 2019 than the official poverty rate (11.7%, compared with 10.5%; see Figure 6).²⁸ More people aged 18 to 64 were in poverty under the SPM (11.2%, compared with 9.4%), as were people aged 65 and over (12.8%, compared with 8.9%). The poverty rate for people under age 18 was lower under the SPM (12.5%) than under the official measure (14.4%, with foster children included). Again, the SPM uses a different definition of resources than the official measure: the SPM includes in-kind benefits and refundable tax credits that generally help families with children; subtracts out a flat estimate of assumed work-related expenses, which are often incurred by the working-age population; and subtracts medical out-of-pocket expenses, which are incurred frequently by people aged 65 and older.

With the geographically adjusted thresholds, the poverty rate in 2019 was lower under the SPM than under the official measure for the Midwest (8.8% compared with 9.7%), while it was higher than the official measure for the Northeast (11.7% compared with 9.4%), the West (13.2% compared with 9.6%), and the South (12.4% compared with 12.0%).

Figure 6. Poverty Rates Under Official Measure and Supplemental Poverty Measure for the United States, by Age and by Region: 2019 (Poverty rates in percentages)

Source: Congressional Research Service, based on data from Liana Fox, The Supplemental Poverty Measure: 2019, U.S. Census Bureau, September 2020, Appendix Table 2, https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-272.html. Notes: Figures include unrelated individuals under age 15 (such as foster children), who are not usually included in official poverty estimates.