Poverty Hits Lowest Rate Ever Recorded Under Trump as Household Income Climbs to All-Time High

Here is some news you may have missed: in President Trump's first year back in office, the share of Americans living in poverty fell to the lowest level the government has ever recorded.

The Census Bureau reported on Sept. 15 that the official poverty rate fell 0.5 percentage points in 2025, to 10.2%. That is the lowest rate in a series that goes back to 1959, when it stood at 22.4%. It was the third straight yearly drop.

The previous low, 10.5%, came in 2019, also on President Trump's watch. Census notes the 2025 and 2019 rates are statistically close, so the two Trump years now stand at the top of the record book together.

About 34.5 million people were in poverty in 2025, roughly 1.5 million fewer than the year before.

Record lows for children and Hispanic Americans

The gains reached the families who need them most. According to the Census poverty report, the official poverty rate for children fell 1.0 point to 13.4%, which Census calls a historic low. The rate for Hispanic Americans fell 1.2 points to 13.9%, also a historic low.

Household income at an all-time high

Real median household income, adjusted for inflation, rose 2.6% to $87,460 in 2025, from $85,210 in 2024. Census says it is the highest on record, in data back to 1967. The previous high was also a Trump year: $85,320 in 2019, in today's dollars.

Black households saw median income rise 4.8%, and White households 3.0%. Among full-time, year-round workers, women's median earnings rose 3.2%, and the female-to-male earnings ratio climbed to 83.9% from 80.6%. After taxes, median household income rose 3.1%, to $76,060.

Pay outran prices in 2025, too. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' real average hourly earnings, adjusted for inflation, rose 1.0% from December 2024 to December 2025. And BLS counts 159.0 million jobs on U.S. payrolls in its preliminary September 2026 figures, the most ever.

Trump told the world

President Trump took the news to the United Nations a week after Census released it. "Last week, it was announced that the poverty rate has reached its lowest level in American history," he told the General Assembly on Sept. 22, according to the White House transcript.

The White House has repeated the numbers since.

The fine print

Census publishes a second gauge, the Supplemental Poverty Measure, which counts government benefits and taxes. It was 13.1% in 2025, not statistically different from 2024, and it is not at a record low. The record belongs to the official measure, the one the government has used since the 1960s.

Under that measure, fewer Americans are poor than at any time since the government started counting, and the typical household has never earned more. You may not have heard it on the evening news, but the numbers are in the government's own reports.