Poverty rate has dropped to its lowest level since the government began tracking the measure, according to newly released Census Bureau data, offering a striking rebuttal to years of gloomy economic narratives pushed by critics of the current administration’s policies.
The official poverty rate fell half a percentage point in 2025 to 10.2 percent, according to the Census Bureau’s annual report released this week. That figure marks the lowest official poverty rate recorded since the bureau began measuring it in 1959, surpassing even the previous record low of 10.5 percent set in 2019 during President Trump’s first term.
The decline meant that 34.5 million Americans were living below the poverty line last year, marking the second consecutive annual decline in the measure. For a household of two adults and two children, the 2025 poverty threshold was set at an annual income below $32,649.
Alongside the drop in poverty, median household income surged to a record high of $87,460, an increase of 2.6 percent after adjusting for inflation. That figure surpasses the previous record set during Trump’s first term, underscoring a broader trend of rising prosperity for American families.