Census Data Shows U.S. Poverty Rate at Record Low, but Experts Warn of Grimmer Numbers Ahead
Two children help their mother pick up food from a food bank in Wilmington, Ohio. Experts cautioned Tuesday that the latest census data on poverty does not yet reflect new federal policy changes expected to hit households hard this year. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
The U.S. official poverty rate slipped half a percentage point last year to 10.2%, a record low, according to Census Bureau data released Tuesday. The supplemental poverty rate, a broader measure that counts non-cash resources, held essentially steady at 13.1%, the bureau’s annual poverty report showed. The report compared 2025 with 2024 and earlier years.
Median household income rose 2.6% in 2025 from a year earlier to $87,460, the highest on record, according to the bureau’s annual income report.
But economists and policy experts warned that the numbers are backward-looking. They do not capture the effects of new federal policy changes that will begin hitting households this year, meaning next September’s report could paint a grimmer picture. Most notably, the sweeping tax and spending bill Congress passed last year cut Medicaid, food assistance and other public benefits that have helped keep millions of Americans just above the poverty line.
Mixed Data, Uneven Benefits
Steven Durlauf, a professor and director of the Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Mobility at the University of Chicago, said the new figures were not surprising, but they should not be read as a wholly positive story.
The supplemental poverty measure is more comprehensive because it includes both cash and non-cash benefits as well as expenses such as taxes and medical costs, Durlauf noted. The official poverty measure, by contrast, focuses only on cash resources.
“There’s some basic good news there,” Durlauf said. “Median household income substantially increased 2.6% after inflation—that’s nothing to sneeze at.” But he added that the supplemental measure’s lack of movement suggests lower-income people who rely more on government benefits are not really benefiting from “an economy that’s running hot.”
Census data also showed that women working full time year-round saw median earnings rise about 3% from a year earlier, while men in the same category saw a 0.9% decline.
Although wage income grew this year, Durlauf said he expects worse numbers next year for people from more marginalized backgrounds. He pointed to policies he described as inequality-increasing, including tax cuts for the wealthy, cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, and major reductions to Medicaid, the health insurance program for people with lower incomes.
Food Aid and Health Coverage Under Pressure
“The main issue for most individuals is going to be the fact that prices and inflation are outstripping wage growth, and so that’s obviously some diminution of real incomes for some people,” Durlauf said.
The Census Bureau also reported that 92.1% of people had health insurance in 2025, compared with 92% in 2024. The relatively flat uninsured rate since 2020, when 91.4% of people were insured, has masked looming coverage losses, experts said.
The Congressional Budget Office, Congress’s nonpartisan research arm, estimated that roughly 15 million people could become uninsured by 2034. That is far more than the current estimate of 1.3 million uninsured people.
In addition, the number of children receiving SNAP benefits fell by 1.2 million between July 2025 and July 2026, according to an August analysis released by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning research group. The decline comes amid broader fears that SNAP cuts could lead to children losing free school breakfast and lunch, and that food stamp changes could cost states billions, raising new questions about the program’s future.
Durlauf said a mix of erratic fiscal policy, energy-price pressures linked to instability in the Middle East, and what he called the country’s utterly irresponsible budget deficit policies are not conducive to an economic environment in which the economy performs well by the usual measures of growth.
Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at [email protected].
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