The following post first appeared on FactCheck.org.
Mitt Romney said that under President Obama “there are more people in poverty in America than ever before.” That’s true, but the poverty rate — which accounts for population changes — was higher under several former presidents than it is currently.
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In 2013, 15.5 percent of the population was living in poverty, based on the Supplemental Poverty Measure. That was down from 16 percent in 2012. Like the official poverty rate, the SPM, in 2013, was the lowest since 2009, the earliest year for comparable estimates.
However, in January 2014, prior to the release of the 2013 figure, the White House Council of Economic Advisers calculated an “anchored” version of the supplementary measure, which sets poverty thresholds based on expenditures for necessary items and then adjusts for inflation in each year. Using those assumptions, the White House found that “the percent of the population in poverty when measured to include tax credits and other benefits has declined from 25.8 percent in 1967 to 16.0 percent in 2012.”
