Poverty rates are soaring in the United States after the end of COVID-19 era federal aid and children were hit hardest by this reality, according to the Census Bureau.
The Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) for child poverty rose from its historic low of 5.2% in 2021 to 12.4% in 2022, according to the Census Bureau.
The rise in child poverty is mostly due to changes in government aid policies. During the COVID-19 Pandemic, the government began many federal programs including expanding child tax credits. Had these programs continued, almost 3 million more children would have been kept out of poverty in 2022.
Another contributing factor to the rise in overall poverty rates is due to a sharp decline in earned income as wages are not keeping pace with the rises in inflation.
“This basically is a return to pre-pandemic levels,” Robert Greenstein, a visiting fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, told The Washington Post. “It’s a jump back to where we were before, which is still significantly higher than most Western European countries.”