Ethno-racial inequality in poverty is an enduring but misunderstood problem. Most prior research relies on the flawed official poverty measure, data with underreported income, and models omitting essential predictors. Using the Current Population Survey, we adjust for benefit underreporting and estimate levels and trends in both relative and Supplemental Poverty Measure poverty rates for ethno-racial groups relative to White individuals in the U.S. from 1993 to 2017. We then focus on the five most recent years (2013–2017) and decompose Black–White, Latino–White, and Asian–White poverty gaps. We expand prior decomposition analyses by better incorporating employment and geographic context and better measuring immigration. Our findings show ethno-racial inequalities in poverty declined from 1993 to 2017 but remained large. Our estimates of relative poverty reveal that millions more Black and Latino individuals are poor than with the official measure—even after adjusting for benefit underreporting. By 2013–2017, Black and Latino individuals remain about twice as likely to be poor as White individuals. By contrast, the evidence is mixed on Asian–White differences. Decomposition results show employment explains the largest share of the Black–White gap, whereas immigration matters most for the Latino–White and Asian–White gaps. Geographical context also explains a significant portion of each racial gap and is particularly central to Asian–White gaps. Compared to prior decompositions, which would explain roughly half of the Black–White gap in poverty, our models explain more than three quarters. Beyond the novel empirical description, this study encourages structural, political, and critical race theories of poverty over behavioral explanations.

贫困中的种族不平等是一个持久但被误解的问题。大多数先前的研究依赖于有缺陷的官方贫困衡量标准、低报收入的数据以及忽略了基本预测因素的模型。使用当前人口调查，我们调整了福利低报，并估计了 1993 年至 2017 年美国族裔种族群体相对于白人个体的相对贫困率和补充贫困率的水平和趋势。然后我们关注最近的五个年（2013-2017 年）并分解黑人-白人、拉丁裔-白人和亚裔-白人贫困差距。我们通过更好地结合就业和地理背景以及更好地衡量移民来扩展先前的分解分析。我们的研究结果表明，贫困中的民族-种族不平等从 1993 年到 2017 年有所下降，但仍然很大。我们对相对贫困的估计表明，与官方衡量标准相比，贫困的黑人和拉丁裔人数增加了数百万——即使在调整了福利少报后也是如此。到 2013 年至 2017 年，黑人和拉丁裔人陷入贫困的可能性仍然是白人的两倍。相比之下，关于亚裔白人差异的证据则喜忧参半。分解结果显示就业解释了黑人-白人差距的最大份额，而移民对拉丁裔-白人和亚裔-白人差距最重要。地理环境也解释了每个种族差距的很大一部分，尤其是亚裔白人差距的核心。与之前的分解相比，可以解释大约一半的贫困黑人 - 白人差距，我们的模型解释了四分之三以上。除了新颖的实证描述之外，本研究还鼓励结构化、