adjusts the dollar amounts to represent the same buying power over time. The U.S. poverty line in 2021 ranged

from $12,880 for a single individual to $26,500 for a household of four people.

Figure 15.2 shows the U.S. poverty rate over time; that is, the percentage of the population below the poverty

line in any given year. The poverty rate declined through the 1960s, rose in the early 1980s and early 1990s,

but seems to have been slightly lower since the mid-1990s. However, in no year in the last six decades has the

poverty rate been less than 10.5% of the U.S. population—that is, at best almost one American in nine is below

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15.1 • Drawing the Poverty Line 361

the poverty line. In recent years, the poverty rate peaked at 15.1% in 2010, before dropping to 10.5% in 2019.

Table 15.1 compares poverty rates for different groups in 2011. As you will see when we delve further into
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