Economic security programs have cut poverty

Center on Budget & Policy Priorities - Using the federal government’s Supplemental Poverty Measure — a more comprehensive metric than the official poverty measure, which counts only cash income — we calculate that the poverty rate has fallen by nearly half since 1967, largely due to the growing effectiveness of economic security programs such as Social Security, food assistance, and tax credits for working families. The SPM poverty rate fell from 25.1 percent in 1967 to 13.9 percent in 2017, with most of this improvement coming from the increased anti-poverty impact of economic security programs..

In 1967, economic security programs lifted above the poverty line just 5 percent of those who would otherwise be poor; by 2017, that figure had jumped to 44 percent. These programs lifted 36 million people out of poverty last year, including nearly 7 million children.

We calculate that the poverty rate has fallen by nearly half since 1967, largely due to the growing effectiveness of economic security programs.Measured with the SPM, the child poverty rate remained at a record low of 15.6 percent in 2017, statistically tied with 2016’s record low — and a little more than half its 1967 level of 28.6 percent.