What are poverty thresholds and poverty guidelines?
Each year, generally in the fall, the U.S. Census Bureau issues a report on poverty in the United States. Among other information, it provides statistics on how many people are poor, and on how poverty is distributed by age, by race or ethnicity, by region, and by family type. Individuals or families are poor if their annual pretax cash income falls below a federal measure of poverty that is also recalculated each year. The Census Bureau’s most recent poverty report is for 2008, and was issued in September 2009 as a combined report, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2008. Since 1965, there have been two slightly different versions of the federal poverty measure: • the poverty thresholds, and • the poverty guidelines. The poverty thresholds are the original version of the federal poverty measure (developed by Mollie Orshansky of the Social Security Administration). They are updated each year by the Census Bureau. The thresholds are used mainly for stat
Each year, generally in the fall, the U.S. Census Bureau issues a report on poverty in the United States. Among other information, it provides statistics on how many people are poor, and on how poverty is distributed by age, by race or ethnicity, by region, and by family type. Individuals or families are poor if their annual pretax cash income falls below a federal measure of poverty that is also recalculated each year. The Census Bureau’s most recent poverty report is for 2009, and was issued in September 2010 as a combined report, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2009. Since 1965, there have been two slightly different versions of the federal poverty measure: • the poverty thresholds, and • the poverty guidelines. The poverty thresholds are the original version of the federal poverty measure (developed by Mollie Orshansky of the Social Security Administration). They are updated each year by the Census Bureau. The thresholds are used mainly for stat
