The US poverty rate fell to 10.2 percent in 2025, the lowest figure in a record going back to 1959

In 1959, the first year the US Census Bureau measured it, 22.4 percent of Americans lived in poverty. In 2025 the share was 10.2 percent, down from 10.7 percent a year earlier and the lowest figure the bureau has published in 67 years of records. It was the third annual fall in a row.

Behind the percentage are people. There were 34.5 million Americans in poverty in 2025, against 36.0 million in 2024, according to the bureau's historical tables: about 1.5 million fewer in a single year. Children gained most among the age groups. Their official poverty rate fell by 1.0 percentage point to 13.4 percent, a level the bureau calls a historic low. The rate for Hispanic Americans fell by 1.2 points to 13.9 percent, also a historic low, and rates also fell for women and for families headed by a woman with no spouse present.

Incomes rose alongside. Median household income, the income of the household in the exact middle once all are ranked from lowest to highest, reached 87,460 dollars after adjusting for inflation. That is up 2.6 percent from 85,210 dollars in 2024 and the highest since the series began in 1967. The bureau released the figures on 15 September 2026.

How we know

The numbers come from the Current Population Survey's Annual Social and Economic Supplement, which the Census Bureau runs with the Bureau of Labor Statistics each February to April, asking households about their jobs and income in the previous calendar year. Under the official poverty measure, a person counts as poor when their family's cash income before tax falls below a poverty threshold, the income line set for each family size and make-up and raised each year in line with inflation. For a family of four in 2025, the weighted average threshold was 32,970 dollars. The official rate can be traced back to 1959, which is what lets 2025 be set beside every year since.

The bureau's own wording is careful, and worth keeping. Its report describes 10.2 percent as one of the lowest rates on record, not the lowest, because it is not statistically different from the 10.5 percent of 2019. A survey estimate carries a margin of sampling error, and a difference counts as statistically significant only when it is too large to be explained by that error; the bureau tests its comparisons at the 90 percent confidence level. The gap between 2019 and 2025 falls inside it. Response rates also remain below their level before the pandemic: the survey's weighted response rate was 61.3 percent in 2026, against 62.0 percent a year earlier, and the bureau publishes research on how the people who do not answer may differ from those who do.

There is a second yardstick. The Supplemental Poverty Measure, a fuller poverty rate that adds taxes, tax credits and benefits such as food and housing help, takes away the cost of work and medical care, and adjusts its income lines for local housing costs, stood at 13.1 percent in 2025. That was not statistically different from 2024.

Why it matters

The official rate is the longest consistent record of poverty the United States keeps, and it is used as an input to decide who is eligible for several government programmes. A third straight fall means fewer families below a poverty line that has been drawn the same way since the 1960s, and the largest fall by age was among children.

The part to watch is the gap between the two measures. The official rate looks at cash income before tax. The Supplemental Poverty Measure looks at what families keep after taxes and benefits, and what they must spend. In 2025 the first reached a near all-time low while the second held flat, and household income at the 10th percentile, the point below which the poorest tenth of households sit, did not change significantly, while it rose 1.7 percent at the 90th. More people crossed the official line, but the share falling short on the fuller count, which weighs what families keep against what they must spend, did not measurably fall.

That same fuller count shows what holds the floor up. Social Security moved 28.8 million people out of poverty on the supplemental measure in 2025, more than any other programme. The official figure says the line is being crossed. Whether the gains reach the households the broader measure still counts as poor depends on the wages and programmes behind both numbers.