The official U.S. poverty rate dropped to 10.2 percent — the lowest on record. Median household income climbed to $87,460, the highest figure ever recorded dating back to 1967. The Census Bureau released both numbers on September 15 in reports P60-290 and P60-289.

ABC, CBS, and NBC covered none of it.

Not a segment. Not a chyron. Not a passing mention between weather and sports. NewsBusters tracked the coverage on ABC's World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News from September 15 through September 17 and found exactly zero seconds devoted to either report.

The income number alone should have been a headline. Median household income rose 2.6 percent from the 2024 estimate of $85,210 to $87,460 — the Census Bureau's own language called it the "highest on record dating back to 1967." The poverty rate fell 0.5 percentage points to that historic 10.2 percent floor. These aren't projections or estimates from a think tank with a political mailing list. They're the government's own data.

And the economic picture didn't stop there. Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed drug prices fell 3.1 percent in July — the steepest decline since 1963. The five-month average inflation rate from March through July 2026 sat at 3.6 percent, less than half the 8.6 percent rate during the same period in 2022.

So what did the networks find more newsworthy? David Muir's World News Tonight ran a segment on Texas Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning apologizing for a sideline outburst at coach Steve Sarkisian, caught on camera by ESPN sideline reporter Holly Rowe. A college kid losing his temper at a football game made the broadcast. Record-low poverty did not.

The pattern isn't subtle. When inflation spiked in 2022, the networks covered it relentlessly — and they should have. That was a real story affecting real households. But the editorial standard apparently only runs one direction. Rising costs are a national crisis. Falling poverty is background noise.

Imagine the coverage if the numbers had gone the other way. If poverty had ticked up 0.5 percentage points under this economy, every anchor in the country would have opened with it. Panels of economists would have appeared on morning shows. Graphics departments would have built animated poverty charts. We'd have heard the word "crisis" fourteen times before the first commercial break.

Instead, the Census Bureau published the most favorable poverty and income data in modern American history, and three broadcast networks with a combined nightly audience in the tens of millions treated it like it never happened.

Median household income: $87,460. Poverty rate: 10.2 percent. Network coverage: zero seconds. The editorial choice was made before the teleprompter loaded.