US inflation eroded 2022 incomes, poverty jumped as pandemic support ended, Census says

investing.com:

By Howard Schneider

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Inflation-adjusted income fell and a key poverty measure rose sharply last year as the U.S. economy continued its rocky emergence from a once-in-a-century pandemic, the U.S. Census Bureau reported on Tuesday.

The income and poverty data released by the Census showed how deeply the country's recent economic outcomes were influenced by the COVID-19 health crisis and the government response to it — with a measure of child poverty more than doubling following the expiry of pandemic-era child tax credits last year, and the worst inflation in 40 years undercutting household spending power.

The child poverty rate, based on a supplemental measure that adjusts for government benefits and household expenses, jumped to 12.4% in 2022 from 5.2% in 2021.

Overall the supplemental poverty rate rose to 12.4% in 2022 from 7.8% in 2021, a change Census officials said was also driven largely by the expiration of pandemic-era programs.

Compared to 2019, before the pandemic, the overall supplemental rate was slightly higher than the 11.8% seen in 2019. The so-called official poverty rate was largely unchanged from 2021 at 11.5%.

Family incomes, meanwhile, largely failed to keep up with a 7.8% jump in consumer prices that was the largest since 1981.

Real median household income fell by 2.3% to $76,330, which Census officials said was about 4.7% below 2019.

The report offers one of the first clear glimpses of how the economy fared coming out of a health shock that shuttered stores and factories in 2020 and continued to stifle activity through much of 2021. The performance of the U.S. economy continues to confound, with stronger than expected growth despite rising Federal Reserve interest rates, yet