It is truly bizarre how clear the upside has been measured and how silently it's been ended. What a shame. As uplifting as the result may have been, the converse is as dismal. Since the payments lapsed, the researchers calculate that most of the gains made against child poverty have been reversed (see chart). In December 2021, the rate was 12.1%. “By the end of the six months, in December, we saw close to 4m children being kept out of poverty,” says Megan Curran, policy director at Columbia’s Centre on Poverty and Social Policy. By February 2022, it had returned to 16.7%—meaning 38% more children (or 3.4m) were in poverty. gift link to the article that's from for the interested.
The early assessments were rosy. Scholars at Columbia University developed a monthly measure of child poverty that is much speedier than the official annual data. Between June 2021 and July 2021 their estimates registered a large drop in the child-poverty rate—from 15.8% to 11.9%. Put another way, the number of children in poverty fell by 40%. That was the result of all covid-related relief programmes, but the monthly payments alone drove a 25% drop in poverty in their first month.