Poverty level

The poverty level is an approximation of the income needed by a family to barely survive. It is roughly three times the amount that a typical family of its size would spend on food.

• While the poverty thresholds had been calculated on the basis of after-tax money income, they were applied to income data — the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey — that used a before-tax definition of money income; this was done because when the thresholds were being developed, the Current Population Survey was the only good source of nationally representative income data. Orshansky was aware of the inconsistency involved, but there was no other alternative; she reasoned that the result would yield "a conservative underestimate" of poverty.

Numerous regulations for government assistance programs depend on the poverty level or threshold.

Problems with America's official definition

• In fact, over the past three decades, the relationship between the [Official Poverty Rate and ... other indicators has been perversely discordant. [1]

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