Series: 2024 Poverty Rates in Historical Perspective Series

The 2024 poverty numbers released by the U.S. Census Bureau in September 2025 are important on their own, but they are even more important relative to historical trends. Understanding historical trends in poverty means reckoning with decisions about how to best measure poverty over time. This series considers the 2024 poverty numbers from a long-term historical perspective for the total U.S. population, children, young adults, working-age adults, and older adults and describes how long-term trends depend on the poverty measure used. Each brief compares trends in poverty over the last nearly sixty years across four alternative poverty measures: (1) the historical Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), (2) the anchored 2012 SPM, (3) the anchored 2022 SPM, and (4) a fully-relative poverty measure. Together, these measures provide a more comprehensive understanding of longer-term trends in poverty rates and reductions in the poverty rate attributable to resources from government policies and programs over time. 

Suggested Citations:

Wimer, Christopher, Ryan Vinh, Jiwan Lee, and Sophie Collyer. 2025. 2024 Poverty rates in historical perspective. Poverty and Social Policy Brief, vol. 9, no. 12.  New York: Center on Poverty and Social Policy, Columbia University. 

Vinh, Ryan, Christopher Wimer, Sophie Collyer, and Sofia Georgianni. 2025. 2024 Older adults’ poverty rates in historical perspective. Poverty and Social Policy Brief, vol. 9, no. 13.  New York: Center on Poverty and Social Policy, Columbia University.  

Vinh, Ryan, Christopher Wimer, Sophie Collyer, and Sofia Giorgianni. 2025. 2024 Working age adults’ poverty rates in historical perspective. Poverty and Social Policy Brief, vol. 9, no. 14. New York: Center on Poverty and Social Policy, Columbia University. 

Vinh, Ryan, Christopher Wimer, and Sophie Collyer. 2025. 2024 Young adult poverty rates in historical perspective. Poverty and Social Policy Brief, vol. 9, no. 15.  New York: Center on Poverty and Social Policy, Columbia University. 

Vinh, Ryan, Christopher Wimer, Sophie Collyer, and Sofia Giorgianni. 2025. 2024 Child poverty rates in historical perspective. Poverty and Social Policy Brief, vol. 9, no. 16. New York: Center on Poverty and Social Policy, Columbia University. 

Published on September 09, 2025