U.S. sees biggest yearly jump in poverty rate in 60 years

Drive-thru food bank line in Las Vegas.
(Image credit: DAVID BECKER/AFP via Getty Images)

By historical standards, poverty levels in the United States remain low, but the country has seen the biggest jump in poverty in a single year since the government began tracking such information 60 years ago, The Washington Post reports.

New data released Wednesday by researchers at the University of Chicago and the University of Notre Dame shows the poverty rate increased to 11.7 percent in November, up 2.4 percentage points since June, marking the fifth straight month of incline. In that time span, around 7.8 million Americans have fallen below the poverty line, or an income of $26,200 for a family of four.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.