Census Bureau data on income, poverty, and health insurance in 2022 states that Median household income dipped by 2.3% as the inflationary shock of 2022 overwhelmed the benefits of a strong labor market (more hours worked and relatively fast nominal wage growth). Comprehensive measures of poverty—specifically those based on the Supplemental Poverty Measures (SPM)—showed very sharp increases. The overall SPM poverty rate rose by 4.6 percentage points to 12.4%, while child poverty more than doubled, rising from 5.2% to 12.4%. These poverty increases were also a casualty of the inflationary shock, but an even more important upward driver of poverty was the policy choice to allow the pandemic-era expansions to the safety net to expire. In particular, the expiration of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) expansions was particularly damaging to child poverty.
— source epi.org | Sep 12, 2023