The federal government began in 2011 to assess poverty in a new way with its supplemental poverty measure. Unlike the official poverty rate, this measure takes into account benefits and many modern necessities. That alternative metric indicated that child poverty fell sharply in 2020 and 2021 as families received a series of economic relief payments to offset the toll that the coronavirus pandemic was taking on their incomes. In 2021, the expansion of the child tax credit made a big difference too.