LOW POINT. The SPM child poverty rate more than halved, from 12 to 5.2 percent, from 2018 to 2021. The rate of US childhood poverty reached its lowest point in 2021 due to the pandemic child tax credit emergency relief program.
from POWER POINT (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2024)
winner, 2025 National Press Women Communications Prize
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LOW POINT. The SPM child poverty rate more than halved, from 12 to 5.2 percent, from 2018 to 2021. The rate of US childhood poverty reached its lowest point in 2021 due to the pandemic child tax credit emergency relief program.
The poem tracks one policy intervention — the 2021 expanded Child Tax Credit — and what happened when it ended. These are the underlying numbers.
This poem also has a fully animated, interactive version →
Data year: 2018–2023
| Year | SPM Child Poverty Rate | |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 12.8% | |
| 2019 | 11.9% | |
| 2020 — COVID relief | 9.7% | |
| 2021 — Expanded CTC | 5.2% | |
| 2022 — CTC expired | 12.4% | |
| 2023 | 13.7% |
Source: US Census Bureau, Supplemental Poverty Measure, 2017–2023 (2023 data released Sept 2024).
The SPM accounts for government benefits and regional living costs — a fuller picture than the official poverty measure.
Data year: 2021 vs. Before/After
| Status | Max credit per child | Monthly payments? | Fully refundable? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-2021 | $2,000 | No | Partial |
| 2021 (ARPA) — age <6 | $3,600 | Yes ($300/mo) | Yes |
| 2021 (ARPA) — age 6–17 | $3,000 | Yes ($250/mo) | Yes |
| 2022–present | $2,000 | No | Partial |
Source: IRS; American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), 2021; Tax Policy Center, 2022.
Data year: 2021
| Outcome | Scale | |
|---|---|---|
| Children lifted out of poverty (CTC alone) | 3.7 million | |
| Children lifted by all pandemic relief | 5.8 million | |
| Monthly child poverty reduction (peak) | −46% | |
| Families who received advance payments | 39 million |
Source: Columbia Center on Poverty and Social Policy, "The Monthly Child Poverty Rate," 2022; IRS data.
About This Poem
'Low Point' turns sanitized data into a visual narrative about the political will to make or deny proven interventions into seemingly "unsolvable" problems. The work uses rhyme and data to highlight the steep reversal of Congressional support for a program that dramatically decreased US childhood poverty. An earlier version of this poem was first published in Writers Resist.
Data Sources