More Americans fell into poverty as the pandemic tore through the country last year, but stimulus checks and unemployment benefits helped many stay afloat financially, according to two separate U.S. Census Bureau measures of poverty released Tuesday.
The official poverty rate climbed to 11.4% in 2020, Census Bureau officials said. The gauge, based on pre-tax cash income, was up from 10.5% one year earlier and marked the first jump in poverty after five years of falling rates. As a result, 3.3 million more people lived in poverty…