The national poverty, income, and health insurance data being released by the Census Bureau on September 15 will have important information, but it will not tell us about how this year’s price, wage and tax changes have been squeezing millions of household budgets, or how cutbacks in health care and nutrition benefits and tax policies are making things much worse.

As we look at the most current hardship/affordability data available, it becomes painfully clear that the definitions of poverty used by the U.S. government are extremely low. A single individual with an income below approximately $16,000 a year is defined as poor; a 3-person household with income below about $26,000 is considered poor. Below are listed examples of serious hardship affecting people with incomes twice that level or higher. That the data to be released for 2025 will show tens of millions of people below the poverty line is a grievous shame, inflicting deep harms disproportionately affecting children, people of color, and people with disabilities. But we must recognize that households earning twice that are struggling to pay for housing, gas, heat/cooling, food, health care and child care, with the economic security previously expected for the middle class increasingly out of reach.

Unaffordable Housing: To afford a modest 2-bedroom apartment in 2026, you’d need to earn $34.73 an hour, full-time, year-round (averaged across the nation; that wage would keep rent about 30% of income). That’s more than $72,000 a year. Of course, rent costs vary greatly by state. Two state examples: in Ohio, the 2026 wage needed to afford a 2-bedroom apartment is $23.82/hour, but the average wage earned by renters is only $19.59; in California, the hourly wage needed for a 2-bedroom apartment is $52.79, while the actual average wage for renters is only $33.30. (Source: National Low Income Housing Coalition, Out of Reach, 2026.)

Unaffordable Gasoline: Price rose 24.6 percent from July, 2025 through July, 2026. (Source: Consumer Price Index July 25 – July 26) Note: upcoming release with August data: Friday, September 11.

Unaffordable Home Energy, Heating and Cooling Felt Most in Low-income Households: In 2025, households in the lowest 20 percent of income range (averaging $17,291) spent 9.86% of their income on electricity and natural gas; up from 9.38% in 2024 (average income: $16,658). But for people with higher incomes, rising utility prices took a much smaller bite out of their income: the top 20% (with incomes averaging $274,561) spent only 1.25% on electricity and natural gas in 2025; that was a higher share than the 1.18% they paid in 2024 (with incomes averaging $264,510), but obviously a far more manageable bite. (Source: National Energy Assistance Directors Association)

Families Without Enough to Eat: The New York Federal Reserve Bank surveys households on their spending and economic expectations, with new data from February 2026. They make the point that “Lower- and middle-income households generally have experienced higher effective inflation rates, with a greater share of their spending allocated to goods that have seen prices soar since the pandemic, such as housing, groceries, and utilities, causing them to cut back on groceries.” The survey found big increases in people saying that over the previous three months, their household did not always have enough food or that their children sometimes missed meals. 

Not enough food/kids missed meals over the past 3 months: 

There were also large increases in those saying their household received food donations: 

(Source: New York Fed: Broad-Based Increases in Food Insecurity and Broader Economic Strains Since 2020.) 

Rising Prices have Deepened Food Hardships; Loss of SNAP Food Aid is Making it Worse: Although implementation of the 2025 law making unprecedented SNAP cuts is not scheduled to begin until January 2027, states worried about big increased costs are already discouraging participation in the nutrition assistance program. From July, 2025, when the law was enacted, to May, 2026, the SNAP caseload has declined by 5.45 million, from 42.01m to 36.56m. (Source: Food Research and Action Center)

Partial Data Showing Alarming Loss of SNAP Among Children: The federal government has not published the above SNAP caseload data by age. Twenty-five states have done so, showing that 1.2 million children have lost SNAP from July 2025 through as late as June 2026 (some states had somewhat less recent data). On average, children made up 43 percent of the total reduced SNAP caseload. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated that the loss of SNAP child beneficiaries for all states over the same period would be approximately 1.5 million. (Source: Center on Budget on Policy Priorities)  

Wage Increases Have Not Kept Up with Inflation in Recent Months: Prices rose 3.4 percent from July, 2025 to July, 2026, but hourly wages rose only 3.2 percent over that period. This is the fourth month in which prices have outstripped wages. (Source: New York Times: ) Jared Bernstein’s SubStack blog notes that the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank anticipates August’s price rise will again be 3.4 percent, while August wages rose over 12 months by 3.1% for all private-sector workers and 3.3% for mid/lower-wage workers – so, more erosion in real income. (Note: August price and real (inflation-adjusted) wage figures will be released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday, September 11 here.

For People with Income in the Lowest Third, the Squeeze has Lasted for Decades: The National Women’s Law Center found that median income rose by 5.5 percent among households in the bottom third from 2004 -2024, but spending on “essential categories” rose by 14.5 percent. But those in the top third saw their incomes increase by 18.2 percent, while their essential spending dropped by 9.7 percent. NWLC also estimated that for the lowest third ($26,000 in 2024) basic needs expenses took up a whopping 95% of their income in 2024, but only 36.3 percent of the income for the top third ($176,657 in 2024). (Source: National Women’s Law Center) 

Trump Tax Policies Mean Tax Increases for 95 percent of U.S. Taxpayers in 2026: The 2025 multi-trillion dollar tax break and health/nutrition, etc. service cuts bill plus tariffs will cause everyone but the top 5 percent to pay more in taxes in 2026 (and beyond), according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. In 2026, the poorest 20 percent (with incomes up to $27,000) will pay $480 more in taxes because of these policies (not taking into account the costs of losing health coverage, SNAP and other benefits). The second 20 percent (with incomes of $27,000 – $53,000) will pay $860 more in taxes. On the other hand, the richest 1 percent ($916,000 and up) gets $8,850 in additional tax breaks. (Source: ITEP)  

Health Insurance Costs Rising: This year, Affordable Care Act Marketplace insurance is rising an estimated 58 percent, premiums are increasing from $113 to $178 per month. The increase would be even higher if many people had not opted to switch from the preferred Silver plan, with better coverage, to the cheaper Bronze plan. (Source: KFF)  

More People Becoming Uninsured: After the combination of rising premiums and Congress’ failure to extend the ACA expanded premium subsidies, 3 million people dropped out of the Marketplace insurance in 2026; a 13 percent drop. (Source: KFF)  

Harsh Medicaid Cuts Will Deny Health Care to Millions More: When Congress enacted its multi-trillion dollar tax breaks for the wealthy and Medicaid and SNAP cuts bill a year ago, it was understood that millions of people would lose Medicaid and SNAP coverage. But a new Interim Proposed Rule released by the Trump administration will make the work requirement rules even harsher than a plain reading of the law, forcing expert analysts to increase their estimates of how many people will be dropped from Medicaid. Manatt Health has increased their estimate of those losing Medicaid coverage each year from 6.4 million to 8.2 million between FFYs 2027-2034, with 2.8 million denied Medicaid coverage in 2027, rising to 9.2 million losing coverage in 2034. (Source: Manatt)  

The Percentage of Uninsured Americans who are People of Color is Rising, and Rising Numbers of Uninsured over the Next Decade will Disproportionately be People of Color: The percentage of people of color who are uninsured rose markedly from 55 percent in 2010 to 64 percent in 2024 (a period in which the number of all uninsured people declined from 49 million to 29 million). Federal cutbacks in Medicaid and ACA have started to increase the number of uninsured people (28.5 million in 2024, and expected to rise by another 14.2 million people over the next decade). 57 percent of the new uninsured over the next decade are estimated to be people of color, a disproportionately high share, while non-Hispanic whites will make up about 43 percent of the new uninsured, a disproportionately low share. (Source: Seamless, Accountable and Fair: Campaign for Community Healthcare)