From Bad to Worse: A History of the U.S. Poverty Rate

The new poverty statistics released this week by the Census Bureau are bad — 43.6 million Americans are officially in poverty and tens of millions more are on the cusp — but not worse than what was expected. However, that's still the largest number of poor people in the United States in the 51 years that records have been kept.

So there are more of us worse off, but as a nation, are we worse off than ever? Let's look at the ups and downs of the poverty rate since it debuted in 1959 to this week's results.

1959 — 22.4 percent
The government begins tracking the percentage of the population living in poverty. More than a fifth of Americans are categorized as poor. Of course, the burden wasn't shouldered equally; the Voting Rights Act wasn't passed for another six years. Still, it woke people up to the prevalence of need and, thankfully, we haven't come close to that number since.

1964 — 19 percent
The rate scares the pants off President Lyndon Johnson, who kicks off the War on Poverty by saying in his first State of the Union address: "This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America." That war included iterations of or precursors to Job Corps, Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), Upward Bound, Head Start and the food stamp program. Johnson won the battle, but would poverty win the war?

1969 — 13.7 percent
Hey, this might really be working!

1973 — 11.1 percent
Thanks largely to Johnson's Great Society and War on Poverty programs, the poverty rate temporarily dropped to the lowest in history. It wouldn't stay there for long.

1979 — 12.4 percent
The rate begins to creep upward as progress evaporates. Poor peanut farmer Jimmy Carter didn't know what he was getting into.

1983 — 15.2 percent
Blame the recession that lasted from mid-1981 to late-1982. Blame inflation. Blame "stagflation." Oh yeah, blame an energy crisis, too.

1989 — 13.1 percent
As they tend to do, things stabilized. Ronald Reagan enjoyed an economic boom and, as a result, a dropping poverty rate. It really did seem to be morning again in America.

1992 — 14.5 percent
Speaking of what tends to happen, that boom was followed by a bust. The sheer number of people living in poverty was the highest it had been since 1964. The child poverty rate was 21.9 percent.

1993 — 15.1 percent
The poverty rate is high but poised to drop under a new president from Little Rock whose campaign had coined the phrase "It's the economy, stupid!" Or should credit go to the winners of the 1994 midterm elections who adhered to new House Speaker Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America"? Discuss amongst yourselves.

1994 — 14.5 percent
The poverty rate among Hispanics topped that of blacks for the first time, at 30.7 percent and 30.6 percent respectively.

1996 — 13.7 percent
Welfare reform was instituted to move people off the rolls and "make work pay." Welfare enrollment is down to this day, but a record one in six Americans relies on government assistance in 2010.

2000 — 11.3 percent
It looks like the early '70s around here! By the time Bill Clinton left office, the poverty rate had dropped by 25 percent. It was the lowest it had ever been among blacks and Hispanics. Less than 17 percent of children were in poverty. Would it be too much to hope it would continue its decline? Yes, yes it would. Cue the lost decade of the aughts.

2007 — 12.5 percent
Near the start of the Great Recession, 37.3 million people lived in poverty.

2008 — 13.2 percent
That number climbs to 39.8 million.

2009 — 14.3 percent
It jumps again to 43.6 million people. That's the greatest number of people in poverty in the five decades the government has been recording data and the highest poverty rate since 1994. The rate among children is 20.7 percent. More than a quarter of all blacks and Hispanics live in poverty. The effects of the recession are felt as strongly as ever.

Photo credit: Don Hankin