Poverty increased across the country in 2020 amid pandemic

(KYMA, KECY/ CNN) - New Census data shows that the Coronavirus pandemic caused poverty to go up by several million people in 2020.

Last year, about 11.4% of Americans were living in poverty while it was just 10.5% in 2019 which was the lowest level since record-keeping began in 1959.

A total of 3.3 million additional people fell below the poverty line last year, bringing the total of people below the poverty line to roughly 37.2 million.

Millions of people lost their jobs due to the pandemic-related shutdowns and mandatory closures of non-essential businesses.

Employment has improved significantly since then, but the nation is still more than five million jobs short of where it was in February of 2020.

The data also says median household income fell to $67, 500 last year, which ias a 2.9% drop from 2019 which was the highest since the record-keeping started in 1967.