According to the latest national data, one in eighteenpeople in the United States lives in “deep poverty,” a subterranean level ofscarcity. Take the poverty line and cut it in half: Anything below that isconsidered deep poverty. The deep poverty line in 2020 was $6,380annually for a single person and $13,100 for a family of four. That year,almost 18 million people in America survived under these conditions. TheUnited States allows a much higher proportion of its children—over 5million of them—to endure deep poverty than any of its peer nations.