“Americans are richer than ever, and poverty hits an all-time low,” crows the New York Post.
“U.S. Household Income Rose to Record in 2025 as Poverty Fell,” says pro-business Bloomberg News.
Most news headlines reflected those startling facts. Then there’s the New York Times and the Washington Post.
“Poverty Rate Was Stable Before Trump’s Safety Net Cuts Gained Force,” the Times sniffed. “U.S. poverty rate drops slightly, but experts fear worse ahead,” warns the Post.
In truth, macroeconomic news means little to most individual American families. They care about the local economics of prices at the grocery store, interest rates on their car loans, and whether or not they’ll still be employed in six months. News of record-high household income falls a little flat if grocery prices are rising.
But both the Post and Times are ignoring the cheering news that the economy is in pretty darn good shape and are using the same exact figures from the U.S. Census Bureau to tell a wildly different story.
“The financial well-being of Americans held relatively steady last year, even as the cost of living continued to climb,” the Times story begins.
The lede in the New York Post story was much different.
“Americans’ household income hit a record high in 2025 while the poverty rate fell to its lowest level ever, according to new US Census data,” says the NY Post.
The Washington Post chose a slightly different negative lede. “The U.S. poverty rate fell slightly last year as Americans’ incomes rose alongside rising prices, according to new census data published Tuesday.”
This mixed review was followed by this: “But the data from 2025 did not reflect cuts to social assistance this year that experts fear will cause a rise in poverty soon.”
Nothing to worry about, Democrats — poverty will get worse soon. And even if it doesn’t, we’ll find something else to scare people and put a negative spin on positive news.
Since TV news channels are more likely to be reading the Washington Post and the New York Times, the actual news of higher income and lower poverty rates is buried.
“It represents continued economic growth,” Daniel Shoag, an economist and professor at Harvard University, said of the wage stats.
“We would expect income to keep going up. We saw a spike during the pandemic and then some drops after that … and we’re starting to see those COVID effects going away,” he told The Post on Wednesday.
Last year, the poverty rate fell half a percentage point to 10.2%, the second annual decline in a row, according to the data. In 2025, 34.5 million people were living in poverty in the US.
For children, the poverty rate fell to an all-time low of 13.4%.
The Census Bureau’s supplemental poverty line – which factors in non-cash government benefits and taxes – was 13.1%.
The agency measured a family with two adults and two children as living in poverty if their annual income was less than $32,649.
According to the Census Bureau, medical costs put 7.7 million more people below the supplemental poverty line last year.
Most people in the US had health insurance for either some or all of 2025, which was fairly steady from the previous year.
About 7.9% of the population, or 26.7 million people, were uninsured last year – still near historic lows.
The New York Times ignored the drop in the overall poverty rate to 10.2% and highlighted the rate of poverty for children.
“The poverty rate was 13.1 percent in 2025, the same as in 2024, according to data released on Tuesday by the Census Bureau. Poverty for children and people over age 65 did not change, while poverty among those without a high school degree rose.”
The difference is a statistic that both the Post and Times have discovered. It’s called the Supplemental Poverty Measure. It’s supposedly “a more sophisticated method that takes into account families’ expenses and government benefits, rather than just marking whether their income falls above or below the poverty line.”
I giggled when I read it was “a more sophisticated” method of measuring poverty. What? Do they deliver the stats wearing a top hat and tux? Sheesh.
Women’s income was up in 2025. Good news, right? Not according to the Washington Post.
“Chastity Lord, president of an anti-poverty program for single mothers and their children, said rising prices have pushed women to take on more work this year to support their families, as reflected in the rising female income numbers,” reports the Post.
I’m not downplaying the struggle of individual Americans and families. Some people are hurting; that’s for sure. As always, it depends on where you live. Conditions are better in some places, worse in others. In some areas, government benefits are more generous than in others. In other areas, opportunities are more plentiful than elsewhere.
In a continental nation of 340 million people, it’s impossible to make a generalized analysis of the economy. All we have are macroeconomic statistics that don’t tell individual stories, or even regional stories, coherently.
Nevertheless, the new statistics tell us how the nation as a whole is prospering. Despite the real struggles of real people, we can take heart that in some ways, the overall economic situation is as good as it’s ever been.
You can’t put that on a bumper sticker. But it’s the truth.
Related: Boston Cancels Reparations Report After Researcher Is Found to Have Fabricated Claims in Her Book
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