The proportion of Americans living in poverty rose from 9.3 percent in June to 11.1 percent in September, according to a study by researchers at the University of Chicago, the University of Notre Dame, and China’s Zhejiang University.
The number translates to about eight million more Americans who now are poor.
The poverty rate was 11 percent in February but fell to 9.3 percent in June, due to federal $600 weekly unemployment stipends and one-time $1,200 stimulus payments to each adult and $500 for each child, the study concluded.
The $600 benefit ended in July and the stimulus payments were largely spent, sending 2 percent of the U.S. population back into poverty, the study’s authors report.
The federal stimulus checks and unemployment benefit raised more than 18 million people out of poverty, according to a separate study by Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy.
When federal supports ended, the U.S. poverty rate rose to 16.7 percent in September, the Columbia study concluded. The poverty rate among white Americans was 12 percent, 25.2 percent among Blacks, and 25.8 percent among Hispanics, it calculated.
In October, 4.3 million people were saved from sinking into poverty through federal support for freelancers, independent contractors, and the self-employed, according to government figures.
The officially recognized federal poverty rate is 10.5 percent, based on 2019 figures from the U.S. census bureau.
