Our analysis of trends in the poverty rate and their influencing factors, conducted using data from the Survey of Household Finances and Living Conditions, revealed that the disposable-income poverty rate for disabled persons declined from 47.0 percent in 2012 to 43.0 percent in 2016. In the years 2016 through 2020, a period examined based on combined data—survey data supplemented with administrative records—the disposable-income poverty rate declined from 40.7 percent to 39.6 percent. Despite the continuous expansion of public transfers, disabled people did not see their disposable-income poverty rate fall all that much because of the increase in their market-income poverty rate. Our in-depth examination revealed that the rise in the market-income poverty rate among disabled people can be attributed to changes in their sociodemographic composition. These changes included aging, an increasing share of one-person households, and a declining proportion of disabled individuals cohabitating with non-disabled family members.
