- U.S. plans new measure for poverty, By Sam Roberts, March 2, 2010, New York Times: “The federal government announced on Tuesday that it would begin producing an experimental measurement of poverty next year, a step toward the first overhaul of the formula since it was developed nearly a half-century ago by an obscure civil servant in the Social Security Administration. While the original definition – the cash income collected by a family or individual – will remain the official statistical measure for eligibility and distribution of federal assistance for the time being, ‘the new supplemental poverty measure will provide an alternative lens to understand poverty and measure the effects of antipoverty policies,’ said Rebecca Blank, the under secretary of commerce for economic affairs…”
- Obama administration issues another way of measuring what it means to be poor, By Amy Goldstein, March 2, 2010, Washington Post: “The Obama administration Wednesday issued an alternative definition of what it means to be poor, stepping gingerly into a long-running debate over whether to revise the way poverty has been measured for decades. Under a ‘Supplemental Poverty Measure’ announced by the Commerce Department, the government is augmenting the formula used for nearly a half-century to determine how many people live in poverty, which has been based on the cost of food and the cash income a family takes in…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty