These combinations sound most natural to me: "The US poverty rate climbed last year" "The US poverty rate has climbed in the last year" "The yield on 10-year treasury notes rose last week" "The yield on 10-year treasury notes has risen in the last week" "Stocks rose the last year" "Stocks have risen in the past year" When you say "has risen/climbed in the past week/year" it feels like they began and continued rising up to now. Simply saying "rose last week/year" could possibly mean they rose, but didn't continue, or stopped. This isn't a hard rule! English is flexible.