September 18, 2024 | Supplemental Poverty Measure on the Rise

The latest Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) found that at 12.9% of American households currently rely on government assistance, up from 12.4% one year prior. The figure was at 11.8% in 2019 and has risen every year under Biden-Harris. The data only factors in US households and not the tens of millions of illegal aliens who also rely on US government handouts.

Around 42.8 million Americans were in poverty in 2023, up from pre-pandemic levels of 38.3 million. We saw poverty levels decreased during 2020 and 2021 when the US government was providing nearly everyone with some sort of assistance to combat wages lost from COVID lockdowns. Those measures simply contributed to inflation and made it harder for those in poverty to move on without government aid.

The SPM factors in tax credits, noncash benefits, social insurance, and market income minus nontax expenses. If only factoring in market income net of necessary expenses, the number of Americans in poverty swiftly rises to 77.8 million. Social insurance programs are now factored into these resources so the data has declined by 28 million, and the addition of SNAP and noncash benefits reduced the figure by another 6.6 million. This certainly does not mean there are less impoverished people living in the wealthiest nation in the world.

Data can be manipulated easily to portray a strong economy. Simply put, more Americans have fallen into economic decline in recent years under Bidenomics. The data would be unbelievable if they actually took into account the migra

Martin Armstrong September 18th, 2024

Posted In: Armstrong Economics

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