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Child Poverty Fell to Record Low 5.2% in 2021 [1]

['U.S. Census Bureau', 'Us Census Bureau', 'Kalee Burns', 'Liana Fox', 'Danielle Wilson', 'November']

Date: 2022-09-13 11:28:03.217000-04:00

Some of these additions and subtractions (for the total population and three age groups) in 2021 are shown in the figure above. Additions include cash benefits like Social Security, also included in the official poverty measure, as well as noncash benefits and tax credits (like SNAP, school lunch programs and the Child Tax Credit) only in the SPM.

A key component of the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) was the CTC expansion. ARPA increased the value of the CTC from $2,000 to $3,600 for children under 6 years of age and to $3,000 for children between ages 6 and 17. The credit was made fully refundable and no longer limited by the taxpayer’s income tax liability.

In 2021, the CTC lifted 5.3 million people out of poverty, including 2.9 million children (Figure below).

Children lifted out of poverty due to the addition of the CTC include (Figure below; Table 1):

1 million children under 6.

1.9 million children between the ages of 6 and 17.

The inclusion of the CTC significantly decreased the number of children experiencing poverty across several race and Hispanic origin groups (Table 1).

The CTC reduced the Black child poverty rate by 6.3 percentage points, from 14.5% to 8.1% when included in SPM resources. Overall, this amounted to approximately 716,000 Black children lifted out of poverty by the inclusion of the CTC.

Similarly, the CTC reduced the Hispanic child poverty rate by 6.3 percentage points (not statistically different than the change in the Black child poverty rate), representing 1.2 million Hispanic children. The CTC also removed 820,000 White, non-Hispanic children and 110,000 Asian children from poverty.

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[1] Url: https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/09/record-drop-in-child-poverty.html

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