The United States’ poverty rate experienced its largest one-year jump on record last year, with the rate among children more than doubling from 2021’s historic low of 5.2 percent to 12.4 percent according to new numbers from the US Census Bureau out today. They’re the latest data to reflect the devastating effects following the expiration of nearly all pandemic-era relief programs. That includes the end of Medicaid rules that protected recipients from getting kicked off because of administrative errors, an end to rental assistance policies, and the restart of student loan payments.

These policies might seem like a distant memory at this point. But they’re worth recalling with the arrival of every new report. Each demonstrates what happens when politicians long hostile to caregivers, universal health care, and the welfare state, for a brief moment, acted to create powerful, federally-backed safety net programs aimed at helping everyday Americans. One of the most effective programs to emerge was the expansion of the child tax credit, which provided families monthly checks of up to $300 per child and broadened eligibility rules for qualifying families. In turn, child poverty rates plummeted; the extra income allowed caregivers to quit grueling second and third jobs; parents were able to buy their kids decent clothes and help stop taunting at school. The Census Bureau previously reported that food insecurity dropped dramatically after just the first extended payment, from 10.7 million households reporting they didn’t have enough food to 7.4 million.

But as the pandemic receded, Republicans with the help of West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who in private remarks reportedly warned that families were using the extra income to buy drugs, appeared to remember the country’s longstanding pre-pandemic hostility. Their opposition ultimately tanked President Biden’s agenda, and along with it, the brief life of the expanded child tax credit. That’s something worth remembering today as the predictable crowd is likely to cry about Democratic-engineered inflation.

        • AnonTwo@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          Because authoritarian governments aren’t known for poverty 👍

          I guess at least when you complain about it, you can just die instead of having to live with it.

          • BelieveRevolt [he/him]@hexbear.net
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            46
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            lol, I bet you think killing Nazis is bad too and there’s some kind of rule that states you have to have reactionaries in your politics instead of just getting rid of them.

              • Melonius [he/him]@hexbear.net
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                45
                arrow-down
                2
                ·
                1 year ago

                you think you can just force elected representatives to do what you like.

                Imagine having elected officials doing what you like. Instead they do whatever corporate donors pay them to.

                Best to let capital sort it out - wouldn’t want to enforce the will of the people or anything.

                • Flinch [he/him]@hexbear.net
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  35
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  1 year ago

                  In freedom democracy burgerland, the average citizen has 0 influence on their elected officials decision making, and must resort to hoping they do something effectual. This is good and rational.

                  In authoritarian, freedom-hating China, a recall vote can be initiated against a politician at literally any time by their constituents if they feel the will of the people is not being enacted. This is horrible, and bad.

                  parenti-hands

              • Kuori [she/her]@hexbear.net
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                27
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                1 year ago

                force elected representatives to do what you like.

                why should it take force when their power allegedly comes from the people? i thought this was a democracy!

      • SovietyWoomy [any]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        50
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        You live in a democracy? When is the last time you and everyone else in your workplace got together to make a decision democratically instead of that decision being made unilaterally?

            • Ram_The_Manparts [he/him]@hexbear.net
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              39
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              What’s even worse is that the person we’re replying to is likely fully aware of how the US has been sending its military and intelligence forces all over the world for the last 70-80 years to violently crush any movement that ever so slightly opposes its hegemony, and yet they still believe that the US is somehow not “authoritarian”

              These people live in a fantasy world.

          • Ram_The_Manparts [he/him]@hexbear.net
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            44
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            At this point someone should probably dig up that research paper that shows that what the US public wants has no influence on what is actually carried out by the US state.

      • DoiDoi [comrade/them, he/him]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        49
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        You live in the US which has the world’s largest prison population by both total numbers and percent of the population. Is this the non-authoritarian democracy you’re talking about here? We have so many people in a cycle of poverty, bad health, and prison because we all got together and decided that this is how we want to allocate resources? Billionaires, private prisons, private healthcare, unaffordable housing, and child poverty?

      • AntiOutsideAktion [he/him]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        37
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Okay so address the point without latching onto the most extreme conceit they made. God forbid anything happen to a coal baron senator.

        With all of the power of the executive branch, the democratic party apparatus, and the leadership of the body they are members of, you can excuse zero attempts to coerce their votes?