Real-Time Poverty, Material Well-Being, and the Child Tax Credit

Two timely poverty measures were developed to monitor economic conditions in the pandemic. One uses reports to a global income question on the Current Population Survey (CPS). A second uses the CPS to impute poverty based on demographic and employment variables. We evaluate the measures in the context of recent changes to the Child Tax Credit (CTC), arguing that the reports are preferable to imputations. Claims that child poverty was sharply lower when Advance CTC payments were made are overstated. The best evidence suggests poverty changed little during that period, apparently partly due to an employment decline among low-skilled workers with children.