Stagnant poverty rates call for further investments in proven anti-poverty solutions like food assistance, affordable healthcare, tax credits, and public benefit programs

Earlier this week, the U.S. Census Bureau released its 2025 data on poverty, income, and health from its annual Current Population Survey. The data (as measured by the Supplemental Poverty Measure) reveals that although there was not a statistically significant increase in California’s overall poverty and child poverty rates from 2024 to 2025, California continues to lead the country, second to Louisiana, when it comes to the highest poverty rates. Despite being the fourth largest economy in the world, with an abundance of wealth and resources to lift children and families out of poverty, California’s persistent and unacceptable poverty rates underscore the need for bolder policy choices and investments to keep children and families secure, nourished, housed, and free from poverty. 

Poverty in California in 2025 According to the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM)

Analyses from the California Budget & Policy Center find that:

• California’s overall poverty rate remained mostly the same at 17.3% in 2025, only a slight reduction from 17.7% in 2024; regardless, this change was not statistically significant. Statistically insignificant means that this slight change could have happened by chance, rather than reflecting a true change between the years. However, this stagnant poverty rate still means that nearly 7 million Californians did not have their basic needs met in 2025.
• California’s child poverty rate also saw a statistically insignificant drop from 18.6% in 2024 to 16.6% in 2025. What is significant is that since pandemic-era expansions to the social safety net, California’s child poverty rate has spiked from its historic low of 7.5% in 2021 to over double that in 2025.
• Poverty is experienced disproportionately across race and age. While poverty increased across every racial and ethnic group from 2021 to 2025, Black and Latine Californians experienced the largest increases. Moreover, 21.5% of older adults (ages 65+) lived in poverty in 2025, which is the highest rate among all age groups, with high out-of-pocket medical expenses likely to blame.

California Wildfires Expected to Plunge Black and Brown Communities Into Poverty Unless Bold Investments Are Made

Although Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) data is not available at the neighborhood level, it is expected that poverty in Altadena and Pasadena will rise following the aftermath of the Eaton Fire, the second most destructive wildfire in California’s history. The Eaton Fire that rampaged through Altadena in January 2025 devastated a culturally and historically rich haven for Black and Brown communities. It burned 14,000 acres over 24 days, destroyed 9,413 structures, resulted in 19 deaths, and displaced thousands of families. Over a year has passed since the Eaton Fire, and Catalyst California’s data dashboard indicates that only 1.7% of damaged properties in Altadena have been rebuilt. Rebuilding for most homeowners and renters has been stalled because of challenges with gap funding (the funding gap between what is needed to rebuild versus what insurance payouts are providing), lead and asbestos contamination, prolonged disputes with insurance providers, temporary and long-term displacement, among other issues. Likely, the destabilizing effects of the Eaton Fire on our children and families will be reflected in California’s poverty rate in the upcoming years unless bold action is taken to urgently and equitably rebuild Altadena and Pasadena. 

“These findings should shock our conscience, but they are sadly predictable. What’s more, the number of Californians living in poverty is climbing even higher because of the systematic and deliberate dismantling of safety net programs and healthcare at the federal level. Although California has adopted important initiatives to help low-income families and children, this data confirms that far more is needed. The hardships facing millions upon millions of Californians call for bold, proven solutions to invest in vulnerable populations, address the economic disparities that disproportionately impact diverse populations, and close loopholes so that the wealthiest corporations and individuals pay their fair share. It is long past time for our leaders to make it the top priority without exception that all California children, families, and individuals have the opportunity to live with health and dignity.”

Shimica Gaskins, President and CEO of End Child Poverty California powered by GRACE

Nationwide Trends in Poverty Reveal the Effectiveness of Medicaid, Food Assistance, Tax Credits, and Public Benefit Programs to Combat Poverty

Similar to California’s trends in overall poverty, the country’s SPM rate in 2025 was 13.1%, also not statistically different from last year. However, if not for public benefit programs, which have already demonstrated their successes in cutting poverty in half when expanded during the pandemic, millions more Americans would have fallen into poverty. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ 2025 SPM data analysis, refundable tax credits kept 6.1 million Americans, including 3.3 million children, out of poverty in 2025. Likewise, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) lifted 3.1 million people, including 1.2 million children, above the poverty line.

In July of last year, the administration signed H.R.1, a Republican megabill that includes the largest cuts to health care and food assistance in U.S. history. Although the true effects of these deep cuts to our social safety net are not yet reflected in the 2025 data, H.R.1’s implementation, coupled with the tariff hikes, will leave the bottom 99% of Americans with less after-tax-and-transfer income by 2027, while the wealthiest 1% of Americans continue to profit. H.R.1 legalizes the largest upward transfer of wealth from working-class Americans to the ultrawealthy in U.S. history by balancing harmful tax and spending cuts on the backs of our most vulnerable children and families.

Growing Data Inavailability and Concerns with the 2030 Census

In this era of Trump 2.0, there is a growing concern for data availability and thus, compromised accountability from public institutions. Every ten years, the U.S. Census Bureau releases its Decennial Census, but the upcoming 2030 Census is proposing new regulations that would: exclude foreign citizens from the decennial census who are not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents; exclude questions about race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation from the census questionnaire; and mandate that the census count period run from January 3 to April 1 during decennial census years. As the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) already terminated data collection on food insecurity starting September 2025, the invisibilizing of hunger in the United States, coupled with the potential invisibilizing of wealth disparities across race/ethnicity and sexual orientation, will make it more difficult to track poverty and analyze its disproportionate effect on Black, Brown, and LGBTQ+ communities. We urge policymakers to protect public data and further include, rather than exclude, all populations and demographic questions.

The Choice to Eradicate Child and Family Poverty Must Be Made Now 

We are at a moral crossroads. While Governor Newsom and California’s policymakers have made the effort to protect California’s robust social safety net against federal attacks this year, more investments and expansions to public programs are needed to ensure that our families are stabilized, secure, and able to thrive. 

As a result of H.R.1, nearly 1 million Californians are at risk of losing their CalFresh benefits, and 1.3 million Californians are expected to lose access to Medi-Cal. Older Californians (ages 65+) already experience poverty at the highest rate of any age group; their out-of-pocket medical expenses will only grow due to program cuts and exclusions. Losing these benefits is a matter of life and death for people experiencing poverty, as 4,000 Californians are expected to die by 2040 because of these cuts. Now, more than ever, it is critical for California to use the tools in its toolkit to fend off H.R.1. cuts to our social safety net and ongoing threats from Washington.

We urge the next California governor and policymakers to:

• Raise progressive revenues from highly profitable corporations that received major tax breaks from H.R. 1 and profit off of the same deep cuts to food assistance and healthcare.
• Strengthen and protect basic needs programs that help families afford their basic needs and provide real pathways out of poverty. 
• Reimagine CalWORKs to be a family-centered, trauma-informed, and anti-racist program that supports, rather than punishes, families experiencing poverty.
• Fulfill on-time and make permanent the planned expansion of the California Food Assistance Program (CFAP) to undocumented adults ages 55 and older, on October 1, 2027.
• Oppose discriminatory and xenophobic exclusions to health care, tax credits, and food assistance for immigrant Californians.
• Expand interventions like HOPE Accounts to close the racial wealth gap and invest in the future of our most vulnerable children.
• Invest in the inclusive and equitable reconstruction of neighborhoods impacted by the destructive 2025 California wildfires.

Just as there was a deliberate choice to cut poverty in half in 2021, we call on the Legislature and future Governor to invest California’s wealth into policies that lift children, families, workers, and immigrant Californians into abundance. California has an opportunity to not only break its persistent trends in poverty, but choose a future where all of our communities thrive.