Reviewing the impact of federal policy responses to COVID-19 on poverty

Gregory Acs, Linda Giannarelli, Laura Wheaton and Sarah Minton

Chapter Chapter 14 in Handbook on Inequality and COVID-19, 2025, pp 221-238 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter documents the federal COVID-response policies that provided direct cash and near-cash aid to United States (US) families and assesses their impact on poverty. In the spring of 2020, with COVID surging, the US partially shut down its economy to curb the spread of the highly contagious disease. The unemployment rate soared to levels not seen since the Great Depression and by April 2020 over 30 million workers had lost their jobs. In multiple pieces of legislation spanning 2020 and 2021, the US responded to this potential social and economic catastrophe by enhancing and temporarily expanding its social safety net. Using the Urban Institute’s Analysis of Transfers, Taxes, and Income Security microsimulation model, we find that the 2021 US poverty rate as measured by the Supplemental Poverty Measure was 7.7 percent and child poverty was 5.6 percent, a historic low. Without any safety net programs or supplemental payments, we project the 2021 poverty rate would have been 23.7 percent. The US’s fiscal response to the pandemic lifted millions of families out of poverty and kept millions more from falling into it.

Keywords: Poverty; COVID-19; Pandemic; CARES Act; FFA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035302758
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