Maintain Policies That Actually Work To Reduce Poverty

The Census Bureau’s 2025 data on poverty showed record-low poverty rates across the United States. Maintaining successful welfare, tax, and immigration policies will help continue the trend of falling poverty.

Immigration is part of the identity of the United States. Nearly one million immigrants move to the United States each year legally, bringing skills, knowledge, and labor to build their own American dreams. Immigration can help address job shortages and boost GDP, lifting all Americans. However, if immigration is completely uncontrolled, it affects both our national security and the economy. America has a duty to protect and ensure the welfare of its own citizens and legal immigrants. Strong immigration policy ensures that those who move here legally have the opportunity to find success.

Within his second term, President Trump has made controlling immigration a priority. Since the height of Biden’s immigration crisis in December 2023, when approximately 300,000 illegal immigrants crossed into the U.S., illegal immigration has dropped significantly. In July 2026, for instance, just above 11,000 people entered the United States illegally, 94% lower than the monthly average for the Biden administration. 

Controlling illegal immigration benefits both individuals born in America and legal immigrants to the United States. For legal immigrants in particular, competition with illegal immigrants can be particularly harmful. After completing the long and complex road to immigrate legally, legal immigrants’ path from poverty may be undercut by illegal immigrants willing to work for below minimum wage or without key workplace protections.

Additionally, poverty decreases as immigrants learn English and pursue education. Policies that incentivize integration will help immigrants participate fully in the American job market as well as protect them from disingenuous actors who try to take advantage of them. Improved English-language skills give immigrants access to wider opportunities.

In the Census Bureau’s report, Hispanic individuals had one of the largest reductions in poverty. They achieved a historically low poverty rate of 13.9% in 2025, 1.2% lower than 2024. Poverty overall fell 0.5% to a record low for the United States. Mexico is the country with by far the largest amount of immigration into the U.S., and Hispanic immigrants make up a large proportion of immigration. Controlled immigration means that Hispanic immigrants are better set up for success. 

Welfare reform policies also impact poverty through reducing fraud. In 2026, food stamp enrollment has fallen to pre-pandemic levels following the Trump administration and congressional reforms. Today, 10.7% of the U.S. population uses food stamps, falling from 42.3 million to 36.6 million between May 2025 and May 2026. Expanding work requirements, for instance, focuses aid on truly struggling Americans. Reducing fraud ensures help gets to those who really need it.

The Working Families Tax Cuts will help alleviate poverty for low-income families this year and into the future. No tax on overtime pay and no tax on tips benefit low-income workers. Workers in service professions—hairdressers, waiters, cab drivers—receive tips, not high-paid white-collar professionals. However, white-collar workers do benefit from tax relief on overtime pay. Tax cuts that help low-income workers keep more of their hard-earned money particularly help those moving out of poverty. The poverty numbers for 2026 will reveal how much the Working Families Tax Cuts impact low-income families.

These policies work to help Americans thrive. Focusing aid on the most needy, extending tax cuts to working families, and incentivizing legal immigration while integrating individuals into American life will help poverty continue to decrease in the future.