Has Economic Growth Delivered Progress Against Poverty?

Without Government Programs, 1 in 5 Americans Were in Poverty Every Year Since 1967

A key motivation for analyses of trends in poverty is often the question of whether poverty has become more or less common over time. So what is the answer?

Since 2009, the U.S. Census Bureau has released the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) alongside the official poverty measure to better capture the impact of taxes and transfers and social policy changes. The Center on Poverty and Social Policy created a historical version that makes SPM poverty rates available back to 1967 to provide a consistent measure for assessing long-term trends. 

Our team has traditionally examined trends in the poverty rate both (a) before counting resources from taxes and transfers and (b) after counting resources from taxes and transfers. This brief shows trends over the past 60 years for these two scenarios for the non-institutionalized U.S. population under two different historical SPM measures. Our goal is to identify the role that policies have played in reducing poverty over the long-term versus the role that the economy—or “the market”—has played.

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Key Findings

  • Despite nearly six decades of economic growth, the national poverty rate before counting income from tax credits and transfer programs has never fallen below 20%. 
     
  • As a result, if Americans had relied on the economy (or ‘the market’) alone, at least 1 in 5 people in the US were in poverty each year since 1967. 
     
  • Progress on poverty over time has largely been the result of government policies, 
    not the market. 

Our historical Supplemental Poverty Measure data is available for public use on IPUMS. Learn more about how to access the data.

Suggested Citation:

Wimer, Christopher, Sophie Collyer, Megan Curran, Rebecca Ortiz, and Jane Waldfogel. 2026. Has economic growth delivered progress against poverty? Without government programs, 1 in 5 Americans were in poverty every year since 1967. Poverty and Social Policy Brief. New York: Center on Poverty and Social, Columbia University. 

Published on September 15, 2026