Poverty is a policy choice. Congress has chosen to have a significant percentage of our population impoverished, including — especially — our nation’s children.

There is no law of nature or principle of economics or Constitutional provision that dictates such a high number of people in poverty within the richest nation in the history of the world.

Census data released Tuesday provides clear evidence of the choice that’s been made. The number of people with incomes below the poverty line in 2022 rose by 15.3 million. The poverty rate for children more than doubled — from an historic low of 5.2 percent in 2021 to 12.4 percent in 2022.

The United States has just experienced the largest spike in child poverty since the current models for measuring economic distress were developed in 2009. All of the record gains made against child poverty over the previous two years have been erased.

The reason for this extraordinary rise in poverty? Not the pandemic. Not a vicious recession. Not an economic depression. Not a huge increase in the numbers of people unemployed. In fact, employment is high.

The reason, according to the Census Bureau, is the refusal by Congress to renew the enhanced child tax credit that was developed during the Covid-19 pandemic. That expiration was a policy choice.

Poverty has shot upwards because we as a nation (through our representatives in Congress) decided to eliminate a relatively modest monthly bump in federal support — $250 to $300 per month for households with children.

In the previous year, that modest bump had the astounding effect of reducing the rate of child poverty by nearly half. When lawmakers expanded the child tax credit in 2021, fewer kids lived in poverty. When they failed to continue the expansion in 2022, child poverty more than doubled.

Ergo, two policy choices by Congress — one that dramatically cut child poverty, followed by a second that dramatically increased it.