The U.S. Poverty Rate Fell To 10.2%, The Lowest On Record; Median Income Also Reaches All-Time High While Inequality Unchanged

Every year around this time the U.S. Census Bureau releases its report on incomes and poverty for the previous year. The first year we have an official poverty rate for is 1959.

See Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2025. This is the press release from the U.S. Census Bureau. Excerpts:

"The U.S. Census Bureau today announced that real median household income was $87,460 in 2025, the highest on record dating back to 1967.

The official poverty rate fell 0.5 percentage points to 10.2% in 2025. The following 2025 findings were not statistically different from 2024: the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) rate in 2025 was 13.1% and in 2025, 26.7 million people (7.9%) were uninsured for the entire year, according to the 2026 Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC).

These findings come from three Census Bureau reports, “Income in the United States: 2025,” “Poverty in the United States: 2025” and “Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2025.” 

While the official poverty measure is based on money income, which is pretax and does not include tax credits, the SPM is a post-tax and transfer poverty measure. The SPM provides an alternative way of measuring poverty in the United States and serves as an additional indicator of economic well-being."

"Income inequality as measured by the Gini index was not significantly different between 2024 and 2025." 

Also see Poverty in the United States: 2025 from the Census Bureau, by CHRISTINA BIJOU AND EMILY A. SHRIDER. It has links to many tables and graphs about poverty and incomes that show how the numbers have changed over time and how they break down by racial & ethnic groups, gender and age.

In Figure 1 below (from the Census Bureau report), the second time line chart shows the poverty rate each year since 1959 (it was 22.2% in 1959, so the rate today is less than half of what it was then). 

 

The graph below shows how median income has changed since 1967.

 

See  The Growth of Family Income Isn’t Primarily Explained by the Rise of Dual-Income Families by Jeremy Horpedahl.

This next graph shows how the gini coefficient has changed over time. I think this is based on household income. As gini rises, the distribution of income gets less equal, meaning people at the top have a larger share of income. The first year of the graph is 1967.

 

But for full-time, year round workers it has not risen as much over time. So not a very large change in inequality.

 

Here are links to two news articles:

Americans’ incomes rose and poverty fell in 2025, Census Bureau says by Matt Peterson of CNBC.

US poverty rate dips to lowest on record, Census Bureau says by Ahmed Aboulenein and Lucia Mutikani of Reuters.

Other related links:

Single-parent poverty from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

The Level and Trend of Poverty in the United States, 1939-1979 by Christine Ross, Sheldon Danziger and Eugene Smolensky. 

Related posts:

The official poverty rate fell 0.4 percentage points to 10.6% in 2024 (2025) 

U.S. Incomes Climbed Last Year, Census Bureau Says (poverty fell and inequality was little changed): Household incomes rose 4% from 2022 to 2023, the first rise since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic (2024) 

Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2022 (2023)

U.S. Incomes Fail to Grow for Second Year in a Row, Census Figures Show (2022)

The U. S. Poverty Rate Was 10.5% in 2019, An All-Time Low (2020) 

The Level and Trend of Poverty in the United States, 1939-1979 (2018)

Mean Family Income By Quintiles (2017) 

More On Poverty (2012)

Some Possibly Surprising Facts About Poverty (2012)

What has happened to the distribution of wealth in recent years? (2011)