If you’re out of work and can’t earn an income, it’s easy to slide down the economic ladder from working-poor to just plain poor. So it’s no surprise that the poverty rate in America has, since at least 1970, moved in sync with the unemployment rate. During each recession we would see a spike in the poverty rate and then a decline as the economy recovers and employment levels began to rise.

But around 2010, something seems to have changed. A decrease in unemployment is now no longer enough to reduce the poverty rate. According to a new memo by the Brookings Institute,

Between 2010 and 2013, the unemployment rate fell by 23% in the United States. The…