Almost everyone around the whole world struggled with the pandemic. In the years leading up to 2020, however, the poverty rate in America had gradually been on the decline. According to the Bureau's early report, the official poverty rate had decreased for the fifth time in a row in 2019, to 10.5 percent, the lowest since estimates were first published in 1959. The researchers put the poverty rate in America before the crisis began at around 15 percent. Even as COVID-19 prompted a lot of shutdowns in March and some sectors of the world ground to a stop, income tax credits for eligible families helped with losses, lowering the poverty rate to 12 percent for just that month. In April, the impact of record high unemployment was blunted by a federal economic relief package: the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. People who qualified got checks of $1,200, couples that are engaged received $2,400 and those with children received an amount of $500 per child. People who have successfully filed for unemployment received $600 per week from the federal government.
The monthly poverty rate for white individuals was 11 percent, but for hispanics and blacks it is 24 percent. The rate for whites went up in august to 12.3 percent, it also increased the blacks rate up to 26.3 percent and 26.9 percent for hispanics. Different states got different amounts of food during the pandemic. 7 to 11 million children lived in homes where they didn't get enough food because their families couldn't afford it. The survey data from November 11 to 23 shows that Black and Hispanic households were more likely not to have enough food for the children. Compared to adults from 9 percent for white households, adults for 20 percent of Black households and 18 percent for Hispanic households said their household didn’t have enough food to eat in the prior week because they weren’t able to afford it.
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