In August , the U. More information is available on how Orshansky developed the thresholds and their subsequent history as the official U. The economy food plan used to develop the thresholds is included in a Agriculture Department report. The thrifty food plan was not established until , when it replaced the economy food plan at the same general level of cost. The thrifty food plan has never been used to update or revise the poverty thresholds.
Poverty thresholds are updated for price changes only using the Consumer Price Index. Poverty thresholds for years since have been updated for price changes only using the Consumer Price Index.
The poverty thresholds were not developed as an item-by-item budget with specific dollar amounts for each consumption category.
If one tries to consider the thresholds as a budget, all that one can say is that they were developed in by multiplying the cost of the economy food plan by three.
Other than that, it is not possible to say what share of the poverty line goes for any specific consumption category. The Census Bureau is the federal agency that prepares statistics on the number of people in poverty in the United States. Neither the Census Bureau nor the U. The best approximation for the number of people below the HHS poverty guidelines in a particular area would be the number of persons below the Census Bureau poverty thresholds in that area.
There is no geographic variation; the same figures are used for all 50 states and D. Guidelines vary by family size. In addition, there is one set of figures for the 48 contiguous states and D. Timing of Annual Update The Census Bureau issues preliminary poverty thresholds in January, and final poverty thresholds in September of the year after the year for which poverty is measured.
The poverty thresholds are adjusted to the price level of the year for which poverty is measured. For example, the poverty thresholds for calendar year were issued in preliminary in January, final in September , were used to measure poverty for calendar year , and reflect the price level of calendar year HHS issues poverty guidelines in late January of each year. Some programs make them effective on date of publication, others at a later date. Test Your Vocabulary.
Can you spell these 10 commonly misspelled words? Love words? Need even more definitions? Homophones, Homographs, and Homonyms The same, but different. Ask the Editors 'Everyday' vs. What Is 'Semantic Bleaching'? Official U. Plotnick, E. Smolensky, E. Evenhouse, and S. Engerman and R.
Department of Health and Human Services, The report includes charts and tables on information such as the following:.
Researchers and policymakers have long called for changes to the official poverty measure for a number of reasons. However, in spite of its shortcomings, detailed below, its salience in policymaking is noted by the economists Bruce D. Meyer and James X. Few economic indicators are more closely watched or more important for policy than the official poverty rate. The poverty rate is often cited by policymakers, researchers, and advocates who are evaluating social programs that account for more than half a trillion dollars in government spending.
While the official measure remains the official national poverty statistic, the Census Bureau has been estimating poverty using a number of experimental measures as well, since the mids. The former is a working family that is making ends meet; the latter is the makings of an underclass. Social exclusion—a term commonly used in Europe that has failed to catch on in the United States—is the degree to which an individual or group is detached from the larger society.
Most people would agree that New York City and Los Angeles are very different cities with distinct social problems, yet the two cities have virtually identical federal poverty rates— The different social and economic characteristics of these two cities, however, indicate that the causes of poverty are likely to be quite different. It is also likely that the solutions required to alleviate or reduce poverty in each city need to be equally distinct. Whereas In addition, the percentage of people who speak only English at home is The large difference in food stamp participation rates between the two cities is also glaring.
Even though the official poverty rates are the same, The different participation rates in this program indicate that a program that works well in New York City might not have the same impact in Los Angeles because of their distinct demographics. It is no surprise that only The SPM will be calculated by determining the consumption spending of an average household at the 33rd percentile of income— well above extreme deprivation, but below the national median.
After determining what this household spends on basic consumption—such as food, housing, and medical care—the U. Department of Commerce will determine what a family needs to subsist at a basic level.
This new line will be adjusted regionally by housing cost. The Obama administration deserves praise for trying to craft a better measure of poverty. But the plan has two fundamental flaws. First, the SPM has no teeth. Instead, the line will be an additional macroeconomic indicator that will provide a different way to assess the well-being of low-income households in America. The second problem is that the regional variation in the poverty line is based solely on the difference in the cost of housing, without consideration for differences in other important costs.
Blank says that the reason is that the only good data created annually at the city level are the housing cost estimates derived from the U. But why not use this as an opportunity to improve and expand data collection?
There is no reason the American Community Survey cannot be expanded to include a consumer expenditure module. This would permit the calculation of a unique poverty line for every metropolitan area that is based directly on the spending needs, patterns, and capabilities of real households in that community.
The production of such data should adhere to three principles: It should be local, comprehensive, and accessible. National-level statistics on everything from poverty to educational attainment are readily available on an annual basis from the American Community Survey.
State-level statistics are also available for most measures, but often not as frequent or detailed as national snapshots. Local-level statistics, however, are sorely lacking. Government surveys should provide statistically representative samples of all major metropolitan areas when possible and, for the most basic and vital indicators, be sure to capture a representative sample of smaller cities, towns, and rural areas on a rotating basis.
Data on poverty, its determinants, and its consequences also need to be comprehensive. The census provides a decent way to access its data for users who want to generate tables of, say, educational attainment by race and income. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provide excellent measures of birthrates by age.
But it is virtually impossible to marry these data to find out the birthrate of African Americans race , in their early 20s age , who are high school graduates educational attainment. That is why universities and foundations spend millions of dollars annually to conduct separate surveys that capture all four variables.
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