The Census Bureau’s new annual report on poverty found that 44 million Americans lived in poverty last year, including 10 million children. As a percentage of the population, overall poverty stayed the same from 2023 to 2024 (12.9%), while child poverty fell slightly (from 13.7% to 13.4%).

As a matter of historical record, the new data establishes that both poverty and child poverty increased under the Biden administration (2021–24). By how much depends on what year you compare 2024’s levels with. The final year before Joe Biden took office was 2020, while 2019 reflects the pre-pandemic standard Biden promised to improve upon: “It is not enough to restore where we were prior to the pandemic. We need to build a stronger economy that does not leave anyone behind — we need to build back better,” the White House stated in early 2021.

If you choose 2019 as your point of comparison, the increase in poverty under Biden is bad. If you choose 2020, it’s catastrophic.