The U.S. government will likely report in September 2022 that for 2021 its most accurate measure of child poverty was the lowest on record. This was due, in large part, to generous government benefits. Our research suggests child poverty in 2021 would have been even lower had the government made it easier for families to receive these benefits.
One way the federal government responded to the economic upheaval that accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic was to boost the money Americans got as benefits – and to distribute those benefits to people who didn’t previously get them.
