Data from the U.S. Census Supplemental Poverty Measure shows that last year 92,000 Mainers, from children to seniors, benefitted from government programs that provide food, healthcare, and Social Security.
The number of Mainers in poverty without government assistance, known as the Official Poverty Measure, was 113,000.
The results show tens of thousands of Mainers will be affected by the Trump Administration's cuts to safety net programs.
Noel Bonam, Maine State Director for AARP, said lifting people out of poverty was the intent of the Social Security program created by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1935.
"That's why the program was created, and it has done just that. That's the single program over the last nine decades that has kept millions of Americans out of poverty," Bonam sai