A homeless man sleeps on the steps of a police station in LA's Skid Row, home to the largest concentration of homeless in the U.S., Sept. 19, 2017. (AP/Jae C. Hong, File)
The child supplemental poverty rate among Black children spiked from less than 10 percent to almost 18 percent in 2022 after inflation sent the cost of living into the stratosphere and federal pandemic stimulus programs expired for families.
Heightened poverty rates followed two years of historic declines in poverty, driven mainly by safety net programs created or expanded during the pandemic.
Families with children had a guaranteed income in 2020 and 2021 thanks to direct payments to households, enhanced unemployment and nutrition benefits, increased rental assistance and an expanded child tax credit.
Child poverty fell immediately and dramatically, bringing positive changes to economic well-being, Brookings reported. Overall child poverty fell to its lowest level on record in 2021 — 5.2 percent on an annual basis, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The Census Bureau, the government agency in charge of measuring poverty — uses two main measures — the official poverty measure and the supplemental poverty measure. The official measure calculates income, threshold, and family to estimate what percentage of the population is poor.
The supplemental poverty measure or SPM was introduced in 2010 to provide an alternative view of poverty that better reflects life in the U.S., including contemporary social and economic realities and government policy, according to the Institute for Research on Poverty.
The Census’s supplemental poverty measure showed that children from all racial and ethnic groups experienced relatively large reductions in poverty, but rates fell most dramatically for Black and Hispanic children, Brookings reported.
The poverty threshold, which is based on the cost of essentials such as food and housing, rose sharply in 2022. A family of four living in a rented home was considered poor under the supplemental measure if the family’s income was less than $34,518 in 2022, up from $31,453 in 2021.
The supplemental poverty measure supplements but does not replace the official poverty measure, which remains the source for official poverty statistics.
A Census Bureau graph of child supplemental poverty rates by race shows that supplemental poverty rates among Black children rose in 2021 from less than 10 percent to almost 18 percent in 2022.
President Joe Biden went on a U.S. tour earlier this year promoting the success of his economic policies — Bidenomics — and taking credit for a lower rate of inflation, record unemployment, and higher wages.
However, a Washington Post/Ipsos poll concluded that just 17 percent of Black people are enthusiastic about President Joe Biden’s re-election. Fox News reported that support for Biden is plummeting among Black Americans due to disapproval of his economic policies.
Biden’s popular Child Tax Credit payments are credited with helping lift families out of poverty during the pandemic. The White House said it was one of Biden’s major accomplishments.
Conservative Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia in 2021 opposed the White House’s $1.75 trillion social policy plan, effectively ending negotiations over the House-passed bill that included an extension to the Child Tax Credit program.
Manchin privately questioned whether parents would misuse Child Tax Credit payments to buy drugs, three sources familiar with his comments told ABC News, according to a Dec. 20, 2021 report.
