In recent years, the nation has seen two opposing shifts: a vast expansion of anti-poverty measures and public benefits during the height of the pandemic, followed by a drastic cutting of public benefits in the wake of sweeping federal legislation passed last year.

Now, a new report looks at how those shifts impacted poverty in Connecticut, finding that a drastic pandemic-era reduction in poverty within the state has already been reversed, with future increases likely as the newer cuts to public benefits continue to take effect. 

The report, released Tuesday morning by CT Voices for Children, a New Haven-based public policy group, aims to offer a closer look at how poverty has shifted in Connecticut in the past several years. The report focuses on three distinct periods: pre-pandemic, pandemic, and post-pandemic.

The organization found that poverty in the state dropped from 9.3% in 2019 to 7% in 2021 as pandemic-era assistance and stimulus funds were released. But then the poverty rate increased to 10.6%, or about 385,500 state residents, including 91,400 children, by 2025. 

“The major changes in poverty in recent years largely reflect a historic but temporary shift in public benefits, and that another historic shift — this time in the opposite direction — is now underway,” said report author and CT Voices research and policy director Patrick O’Brien. “And if not offset, the new federal cuts will likely lead to more residents living in poverty.” 

To understand how the benefit cuts could impact state residents, the report examines a variety of federal data. It also looks at state data highlighting who is most likely to fall into poverty in Connecticut, including women, Black residents, Hispanic residents, noncitizens, and children.  

In doing so, the report adds new data to a growing pile of information about poverty and economic hardship in the state, showing that even before some of the upcoming federal benefit cuts take effect, a growing number of households are struggling. And with the benefit changes likely to increase poverty further, CT Voices argues that now is the time for the state to take action.  

Poverty on the rise

The report looks at three different types of poverty metrics: the Official Poverty Measure, which looks at pre-tax cash income; the Supplemental Poverty Measure, which adds in additional benefits like food and housing assistance;  and the Health Inclusive Poverty Measure, a third measure that includes health-related benefits like Medicaid. 

In addition to examining how poverty rates have increased as temporary pandemic-era assistance programs like stimulus programs and expansions to the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit ended, the report also examines who those changes have impacted the most. 

It dedicates much of its focus in this area to child poverty, noting that using SPM data,  the child poverty rate in Connecticut was more than halved during the pandemic, falling from 9.8%  in 2019 to 3.8% in 2021. By 2025, that decline was erased, with the rate hovering at 12.5%.

But other groups also stand to be affected by the recent ticks upward in poverty. The report shows that groups like women, noncitizens, and Black and Hispanic populations are more likely to face poverty or near poverty than the state population as a whole.  

The cuts to public benefits arrive at a time where populations in the state are less likely to be able to absorb the impact. That tracks with other CT Voices for Children reports, including its annual State of Working Connecticut report, which found that lower-income households are most likely to be hit by economic instability in the state, with higher than national unemployment, increased consumer costs, and public benefit cuts all colliding at an already complicated time for struggling households. 

Because of this, CT Voices for Children predicts that the looming benefits cuts, many of which are targeted at benefits programs that it says have had a tangible impact on reducing poverty in the state and nationally, will instead cause further increases in Connecticut. 

Gov. Ned Lamont’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Some of those effects are already beginning to be seen. In a different report published in August, CT Voices for Children found that in the past year, roughly 63,000 state residents lost benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, with people losing benefits faster than the state initially expected. 

The latest report notes that the public benefits most in jeopardy are also the ones with some of the largest effects in reducing poverty in Connecticut. SNAP, for example, was the fourth-largest poverty-reducing measure in CT in the state, pulling 48,100 residents out of poverty, including 15,900 children. 

Medicaid, meanwhile, will be subject to new work requirements and other rules in 2027 that could see roughly 110,000 adults removed from eligibility. It was the largest healthcare related poverty-reducing measure, reducing the poverty rate by 5.2 percentage points, lifting 189,400 residents out of poverty, including 72,800 children.

The largest poverty-reducing measure, Social Security, could also face changes in the coming years. If the program’s  funding shortfall is not addressed in the immediate future, benefits could be cut significantly starting in 2032.  

That could have a big impact in the state. “In Connecticut, the program reduced the poverty rate by 8.5 percentage points, lifting nearly 311,000 residents out of poverty, primarily seniors, but also children and working aged adults,” O’Brien said.

CT Voices for Children argues that the potential impact of the federal cuts reinforce the importance of benefit programs more broadly. While the latest report does not make policy prescriptions, the organization has already called for several changes that it says could help people in the state, including a state nutrition assistance program modeled after and capable of replacing parts of SNAP, and a state-funded public option for healthcare.

In recent months, state leaders have also advanced their own efforts to address the issue. The Lamont administration has used money to support Connecticut Foodshare and also pledged to issue grocery store gift cards to residents who have lost SNAP, but advocates say that a more permanent solution is drastically needed. 

With this new report, CT Voices hopes that it can provide data that shows the urgency of the issue facing the state. “As federal funding and benefits are cut, Connecticut faces important choices about how to respond,” Emily Byrne, executive director of CT Voices for Children, told reporters on Tuesday.  “We can allow federal budget cuts to deepen hardship, or we can make deliberate investments to protect Connecticut residents and strengthen economic security for everyone in our state.”