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Friday, Oct. 30, 2020

Has the US poverty rate increased in recent months?

Claudine Ng, Gigafact
yes

The coronavirus, despite the package of relief measures enacted in March 2020, appears to have halted a five-year decline in poverty in the U.S., according to academic researchers.

On Oct. 15, a team at Columbia University said the U.S. rate has increased from 15% in February to 16.7% in September, using its own adjustments to official data. A second group, affiliated with Notre Dame and the University of Chicago, estimates the impoverished population grew by 6 million people between June and September as the positive effect of various relief payments tailed off.

In 2019, the U.S. poverty rate fell to 10.5%, its fifth consecutive annual decline, according to the Census Bureau. The bureau defined the poverty threshold for a single person under 65 as $13,300 in annual income, and for a family of four as $26,172.

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