Official Poverty Rate Declines Slightly and Income Inequality Remains High

By Raquel Harati, NLIHC Research Analyst 

The U.S. Census Bureau released two annual reports, Poverty in the United States: 2024 and Income in the United States: 2024, on September 9, that assess recent economic trends. This year’s report found that the official poverty rate for 2024 was 10.6%, down from 11.1% in 2023, with 35.9 million people remaining in poverty across the country. The Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), which considers noncash benefits from anti-poverty programs and tax credits while removing certain necessary expenses from income calculations, is 12.9% with no statistically significant change from 2023. The Census Bureau also found that the real median household income for 2024 is $83,730, which is not significantly different from the previous year. Notably, household incomes in the 90th percentile saw their income levels grow 4.2%, while households in the 50th and 10th percentiles saw no significant changes in income. 

Along with the official poverty rate marginally declining from 2023 to 2024, official poverty rates for white, Asian, and Hispanic (of any race) individuals also decreased slightly by 0.5, 1.6, and 1.6 percentage points, respectively. Other races and ethnicities saw no statistically significant changes in 2024 according to the official poverty measure. Official poverty rates of individuals under the age of 18 slightly decreased from 15.3% in 2023 to 14.3% in 2024. Individuals aged 18 to 64 years also saw a 0.4% decrease, while those 65 and older did not see a statistically significant change within the same period. Similar to 2023, we see higher rates of renters in poverty (20.1%) when compared to homeowners with a mortgage (3.8%) and homeowners without a mortgage (10.4%) in 2024.  

While there was not a statistically significant change in the overall SPM rate in 2024, there was a statistically significant increase in the SPM rate for Black individuals from 18.5% to 20.7%, an increase of 2.2 percentage points—the highest of any racial demographic. SPM rates for those 65 years and older increased 0.8 percentage points from 14.2% to 15%, the largest increase and only significant change of any age group from 2023 to 2024. The SPM poverty rate among renters in 2024 remains significantly higher (23.3%) when compared to homeowners without a mortgage (11.7%) and homeowners with a mortgage (6.1%). 

Social security remains the largest antipoverty program in 2024, lifting 28.7 million individuals out of SPM poverty. Refundable tax credits and SNAP are the next highest antipoverty programs, raising 6.8 million and 3.6 million individuals out of poverty, respectively. Housing subsidies brought 2.5 million individuals out of poverty. Part of the reason that social security, tax credits, and SNAP have a greater impact on reducing poverty nationally than housing subsidies is because they are available to anyone who qualifies. In contrast, housing subsidies are only provided to 1 in 4 households that qualify. Altogether, these findings highlight the importance of antipoverty programs, including housing assistance. 

According to Income in the United States: 2024, there was no statistically significant increase in real median income relative to 2023. However, there were some significant changes in median incomes for specific demographics. Median incomes increased from 2023 to 2024 by 5.5% for Hispanic households and 5.1% for Asian households, while they declined by 3.3% for Black households. White and non-Hispanic white households’ median incomes did not change significantly between 2023 and 2024. For the second consecutive year, the female-to-male earnings ratio decreased from 82.7% in 2023 to 80.9% in 2024. This change is likely due to median earnings for men who work full-time increasing by 3.7% while there was no significant change to incomes for women working full-time.  

Poverty in the United States: 2024 can be found here.  

Income in the United States: 2024 can be found here.