In their latest report on Income and Poverty in the United States: 2018 released on September 10th, the US Census Bureau reported that, in 2018, the share of Americans living in poverty fell for the fourth consecutive year. According to this latest official government information, 11.8 percent of Americans — including some 38.1 million children, working-age adults, and seniors — had incomes below the official poverty line and were living “in poverty.”
But the official poverty measure (OPM for short) actually ignores more anti-poverty benefits than it counts in determining who is officially “poor” in America, so what this official data leaves out is as important as what it counts. As a result, the OPM has grown increasingly unconnected to reality as it fails to count a rising share of taxpayer assistance provided to aid the poor.
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