The big drop in American poverty during the pandemic, explained

The lesson from the past year: Poverty is a policy choice.

In 2020 and 2021, the federal government gave Americans an unprecedented amount of money.

A big part of the US’s response to Covid-19 was strengthening the existing safety net, or providing relief specific to particular types of spending, like food or housing. Food stamp/SNAP benefits were raised. Evictions were barred nationwide for over a year.

But the core of the response was an unprecedentedly large and inclusive set of stimulus checks directly shoveling money to most Americans. In three rounds — March and December...