Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Rule Changes

Leading critic of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act's safety net cuts

The Census Bureau reported Tuesday that median household income reached $87,460 in 2025, the highest on record since 1967 and up 2.6% from $85,210 the year before. The official poverty rate fell half a point to 10.2%, and child poverty dropped to a historic low of 13.4%.

Updated Sep 15

Rule Changes

Estimates SNAP enrollment losses

Miami-Dade, the third-largest school district in the country, stopped serving free breakfast and lunch to all of its 300,000 students this fall. Only 121 of its 500-plus schools still qualify for the federal program that pays for those meals.

Updated Sep 6

Rule Changes

Leading advocate for SPM adoption and safety net expansion

The Census Bureau announced on September 9, 2025 that poverty fell to 10.6% in 2024—the lowest in years and proof, officials said, that the economy was lifting Americans up. But buried in the same report: a different poverty measure showed 12.9% of Americans struggling, with no improvement at all, same country, same year, two completely different stories about who's hurting.

Updated May 20