It's not even controversial, it's wrong. Poverty, particularly extreme poverty, has been decreasing rapidly over the past 25 years.
Of course, this doesn't mean that everyone is better; there are always winners and some losers, and there are setbacks here and there, but the big picture is one of great progress.
For more, one should read the Human Development Reports:
Actually, about 1 percent of children in the United States suffer from chronic malnutrition. And malnutrition occurs in people who are either undernourished or overnourished. In the United States, more children suffer from malnutrition due to dietary imbalances than due to nutritional deficiencies.
Poverty also includes having your neighborhood torn apart by junkies on opioids.
But I guess actually looking at the econometric data to compare apples to apples isn't worthwhile because you can stay indoors while your tires are stolen and watch Jessica Jones, so things are better than they used to be, right?
Since the parent was commenting a quote about "billions of poorer people across the world have seen their wealth standstill or decline", it is rather obvious that the Guardian was commenting not on US poverty but global poverty.
Of course, this doesn't mean that everyone is better; there are always winners and some losers, and there are setbacks here and there, but the big picture is one of great progress.
For more, one should read the Human Development Reports:
http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/2016_human_developme...