The official poverty rate in the United States dipped slightly by half a percentage point last year to a historic low of 10.2%, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released Tuesday.

The supplemental poverty rate, a more holistic figure that includes an individual’s non-cash resources, remained essentially unchanged at 13.1%, according to the bureau’s annual poverty report. The report measured 2025 numbers in comparison with 2024 and previous years.

The median household income for 2025 rose 2.6% from the previous year to $87,460, the highest on record, according to the bureau’s annual income report.

Some experts cautioned that the data doesn’t reflect the effects of new federal policy changes that will be hitting households hard this year, and that the United States should expect grimmer statistics in next September’s report. Most significantly, the massive tax and spending bill passed by Congress last year slashed Medicaid, food assistance and other public benefits that have kept millions in the country hovering above the poverty line.

This week’s numbers are not all that surprising, but they may not reflect an entirely positive picture, said Steven Durlauf, a professor and director of the Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Mobility at the University of Chicago.

The supplemental poverty measure, he noted, is more all encompassing because it includes cash and noncash benefits and expenses, such as taxes and medical expenses, whereas the official poverty measure focuses just on cash resources. 

“There’s some basic good news there, and that is that median household income, you know, substantially increased 2.6% after inflation is nothing to to sneeze at,” Durlauf said. But he said the fact that the supplemental measure hasn’t budged could mean that people with lower incomes, and who may rely on more government benefits, aren’t really benefiting from “an economy that’s running hot.” 

Census data show women in full-time, year round work saw higher median earnings from last year by about 3%, while men in the same position saw a decline of 0.9%. 

And while it’s true there was growth in wage income this year, Durlauf said, he expects the numbers will be worse next year for people from more marginalized backgrounds. He pointed to “inequality-increasing” policies such as tax cuts for the rich, cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, and major cuts to the Medicaid health insurance program for people with lower incomes. 

“The main issue for most individuals is going to be the fact that prices and inflation is outstripping wage growth, and so that’s obviously some diminution of real incomes for some people,” Durlauf said. 

U.S. Census Bureau data also show 92.1% of people were insured in 2025, as compared with 92% in 2024 – reflecting the relatively flat uninsurance curve in the U.S. since 2020, when 91.4% of people were insured. 

The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan research arm of Congress, estimated that roughly 15 million people would become uninsured by 2034, well more than the current estimate of 1.3 million uninsured people. 

Additionally, the number of children receiving SNAP benefits fell by 1.2 million between July 2025 and July 2026, according to an August analysis released by the left-leaning research group Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. 

“The combination of the erratic fiscal policies, the effect on energy prices via this destabilization of the Middle East, and to be blunt, the utterly irresponsible fiscal policies of the country in terms of budget deficits, are not conducive to an economic environment in which the economy does well in terms of the usual ways we think about growth,” Durlauf said. 

Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at schatlani@stateline.org.

Wage gains for lower-paid Wisconsin workers have continued in 2026, but a halt in job creation suggests that might not last, says the author of a new report released ahead of Labor Day.

“The State of Working Wisconsin 2026” tells a good news-bad news story for Wisconsin’s workforce, but one that could become less favorable under current conditions.

“For working people in Wisconsin, the Labor Day 2026 picture is mixed,” the report states. “While overall unemployment remains low, the state isn’t adding jobs and Black unemployment is growing. While the median wage has reached an all-time high, surging inflation in 2026 means that wage growth is likely coming to an end.”

The report is a product of the High Road Strategy Center, based at the University of Wisconsin. It was written by Laura Dresser, the center’s associate director, along with Joel Rogers, the director, and Leslie Vasquez. The center was founded 30 years ago as the Center on Wisconsin Strategies (COWS).

The report’s best news is the continued wage growth, particularly for lower-wage workers, Dresser said in an interview. That has been consistent since about 2018, she said.

Except for a period early in the COVID-19 pandemic, when many businesses cut back and there was a brief, sharp increase in layoffs, the unemployment rate has also been consistently low, and employers have complained about the difficulty in filling jobs.

“Workers have more bargaining power, and they’ve managed to turn that into wage increases,” Dresser said. “That’s much more true in the lower-wage jobs than it is in the higher wage jobs.”

The lowest-paid 20% of workers have made the strongest wage gains, while the wage increases have been the smallest for the workers whose pay puts them in the 80th percentile —those who earn more than 80% of the workforce — she said.

Job growth, however, has slowed down in the last year and a half.

“Since late 2024, Wisconsin’s job market has gone flat,” the report states. From 2020 through most of 2024, Wisconsin’s economy was steadily adding jobs, setting new records.

In November 2024, the state hit a record high of 3,051,000 jobs, according to the report. Since then the total number of jobs has diminished, marking 3,042,900 jobs in July.

“We are not seeing increasing numbers of jobs over the last year and a half,” Dresser said — which, she observed, is parallel to a national trend of “anemic” job growth.

The construction industry remains particularly strong in Wisconsin job growth, according to the report, with jobs growing at twice the rate for construction jobs nationwide in the last six years, according to the report.

Wisconsin leisure and hospital jobs grew 1.6% in that period, while nationally they “barely grew at all,” according to the report. And manufacturing jobs are 4% below what they were in February 2020, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns.

“Wisconsin is losing manufacturing jobs and losing them much more rapidly than the national decline,” the report states.

Tariff policies have shifted unpredictably since President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January 2025 owing both to shifting policies in the administration as well as court cases that have overturned some of the administration’s tariffs.

The report cites research from the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., that concludes the tariff policies have done little to change the nation’s balance of trade with other countries, while reducing both imports and exports.

Wage growth could be coming to an end as well. If unemployment increases, workers may feel less able to seek better pay and working conditions, according to the report.

In 2026, inflation has driven up costs particularly for energy, fuel and utilities. “And national evidence is that inflation is growing faster than wage growth this year — that’s a big warning light that we’ll get thrown off that wage trend we’ve been on,” Dresser said.

While wage gains have been especially strong for Black workers over the last six years in Wisconsin — increasing 17% for Black women and 14% for Black men — the report also sees a persistent inequality along racial lines.

“Unemployment has stayed really low, but in the last year Black unemployment has gone up by a full percentage point while white unemployment has held steady,” Dresser said.

The failure of Wisconsin to raise the state minimum wage — which remains at $7.25 an hour — and the persistence of state laws enacted in the last decade weakening unions for public employees as well as in the private sector are also making it more difficult for workers, according to the report.

“Unions, made up of working people, help increase the power and standards of living of working people,” the report states. And they have been actively organizing in Wisconsin, although the renewed enthusiasm for unions hasn’t yet produced broad gains in membership, which has diminished to 5% of the private sector workforce.

Affordability has become a widespread buzzword in political campaigns for 2026, and the report suggests that can be viewed in more than one way.

“While the question of affordability is generally framed as a problem of the cost of living, the problem is equally or even better understood as a problem of suppressed pay,” the report states. “Raising the minimum wage and making it easier to join a union would both increase paychecks.”