US child poverty rate at an all-time low

From the article:

In figures released Tuesday, we learned that in 2021 child poverty fell even further, to just 5.2 percent, by far the lowest rate ever recorded [...] the child poverty rate fell by nearly 60 percent in just two years.

(See graph in article.)

In 2020, the federal government sent two rounds of stimulus checks to adults as well as dependent children; households with children received relatively more resources than those without. These two payments lowered the child poverty rate by nearly 4.5 percentage points, more than the 3.2 percentage point decline for adults, bringing more than 3 million children out of poverty.

In 2021, even more resources were directed toward children through the expanded child tax credit, which sent households with children up to $300 per child per month, from July to December 2021. Census Bureau analysis finds this policy pulled another nearly 3 million children out of poverty. In 2021, for the first time ever, the rate of child poverty fell below that of adults.

The expanded child tax credit has proven particularly effective because it not only reduces child poverty but also targets the most disadvantaged children. As one of us has written, the number of families surviving on virtually no cash income — even as they may have access to in-kind aid like food assistance — has risen sharply in the past few decades. By broadening eligibility to the very poorest, the expanded child tax credit not only pushed income poverty down but also helped prevent the most extreme forms of child poverty.

[...]

One pandemic-era policy is permanent: a change to the way food assistance benefit levels are calculated. This will reduce hardship and poverty going forward and should be celebrated. But most of the new Covid-era safety net has already expired, and we should expect child poverty to rise in tandem in 2022.