Did Unemployment Insurance Lower Official Poverty Rates in 2020?

Expanded unemployment insurance benefits during pandemic lowered poverty rates across all racial groups.

America Counts: Stories Behind the Numbers In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, shutdowns across the country resulted in rapid job loss. In response to soaring unemployment, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act in late March 2020. The CARES Act significantly expanded unemployment insurance by $600 a week, broadened eligibility, and extended benefits for an additional 13 weeks. How did these moves affect the official poverty rate? Unemployment insurance (UI) benefits lowered the overall poverty rate by 1.4 percentage points to 11.4% in 2020 and decreased poverty across all racial groups and all age groups, according to Census Bureau data released earlier this week (differences due to rounding). Read More Income statistics released earlier this week by the Census Bureau show a 2.9% decline in median household income between 2019 and 2020 and a 1.2% decline in the median earnings of all workers. But during the same period, real median earnings of full-time, year-round workers increased 6.9%. Understanding why earnings for full-time, year-round workers could go up while earnings overall declined requires a deeper dive into who lost their jobs. Read More Help us spread the word about America Counts. Share this story on social media or forward it to a friend. Share This 2020 Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance The Census Bureau announced earlier this week that median household income in 2020 decreased 2.9% between 2019 and 2020, and the official poverty rate increased 1.0 percentage point. Meanwhile the percentage of people with health insurance coverage for all or part of 2020 was 91.4%. An estimated 8.6% of people, or 28.0 million, did not have health insurance at any point during 2020, according to the 2021 Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC). Learn More About America Counts America Counts tells the stories behind the numbers in a new inviting way. It features stories on various topics such as families, housing, employment, business, education, economy, emergency management, health, population, income and poverty. Contact our Public Information Office for media inquiries or interviews. Don't miss an America Counts story! Subscribe here.

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