Population

What is the US poverty rate?

Updates published annually
About 10.6% of the population as of 2024. The poverty rate is the percentage of people whose household income falls below the poverty threshold set by the government. It measures the percentage of people in households that don’t earn enough to pay for basic needs like food, housing, and healthcare. In 2024, 35.8 million people lived in poverty.

10.6%

of the population (2024)

35.8M

people living under the poverty line (2024)

The national poverty rate was first officially recorded in 1959 at 21.9%. It has generally declined since then, with spikes during economic downturns. The last time the rate rose above 15% was in 2010, following the Great Recession. The 2024 rate of 10.6% was a decrease of 0.5 percentage points from the year before.

In 2024, 10.6% of the US population were living under the poverty line.

Poverty rate

The poverty rate shows overall trends, but the total number of people also matters; many aid programs and funding decisions are based on the number of people in poverty, not the percentage. In 2024, that was 35.8 million people, down 23.1% from the 2014 peak of 46.7 million.

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In 2024, 35.8 million people in the US were in poverty

People living under poverty line

The poverty rate for children under 18 decreased from 15.3% to 14.3% between 2023 and 2024. During the same period, the poverty rate for adults under 65 decreased from 10.0% to 9.6% and increased from 9.7% to 9.9% for over-65s.

In 2024, 14.3% of children in the US were living under the poverty line.

Poverty rate by age group

Poverty rates also vary by family type — single-parent families, married couples, and individuals living alone all deal with different economic circumstances. In 2024, 21.8% of families led by a female householder with no spouse present lived in poverty, while only 4.3% of married-couple families did.

In 2024, 21.8% of families with a female householder, no spouse present were in poverty.

Looking along racial and ethnic lines shows more discrepancies. In 2023, 21.2% of the American Indian and Alaska Native population lived under the poverty line, more than any other racial or ethnic group and more than the white, not Hispanic population’s 7.7%.

In 2024, 19.3% of the American Indian and Alaska Native population was living under the poverty line.

Poverty rate by race and ethnicity

Data from the American Community Survey, a US Census Bureau project and a different source than the national-level data here, shows a range of poverty rates at the state level. Louisiana residents have the highest poverty rate at 18.9% in 2023, and New Hampshire had the lowest at 7.2%.

In 2023, Louisiana had the highest poverty rate at 18.9%.

Poverty rate

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Methodology

USAFacts standardizes data, in areas such as time and demographics, to make it easier to understand and compare.

The analysis was generated with the help of AI and reviewed by USAFacts for accuracy.

Page sources

USAFacts endeavors to share the most up-to-date information available. We sourced the data on this page directly from government agencies; however, the intervals at which agencies publish updated data vary.

  • US Census Bureau

    American Community Survey (ACS)

    US Census Bureau logo

  • US Census Bureau

    Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement