"under the poverty line"

Marc Murphy in the C-J-- before Christmas with a year-long but erroneous/confused message...

No one lives under the poverty line in the United States. Charity and government assistance assure that.

The reference to a 24% poverty rate denotes that 24% of children live in households where reported annual cash income is lower than the government's income standard. (See: this earlier post for a complete discussion of reported, annual, cash and income-- and this post for some revealing data on consumption vs. "income".)