Poverty and Family Budgets Issue Guide

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Posted August 2001

General Information on Poverty Measurement and Basic Family Budgets:

Frequently asked questions (FAQ) about poverty and family budgets

Creating a Basic Family Budget: EPI Methodology and Links to Data Sources

Basic Family Budget Studies by State

Basic Family Budget Calculator (online supplement, updated September 2005)

Key Tables and Charts:

Numbers of families and persons below family budgets and poverty level (Table 2 from Hardships in America)
Share of families with income less than family budget compared to one and two times the poverty threshold, by demographic characteristics (Table 3 from Hardships in America)
Distribution of families by family budget and poverty status (Table 4 from Hardships in America)
Percent and number of persons in families with income less than family budgets, by state (Table 5 from Hardships in America)
Proportion of persons in families experiencing hardships (Table 7 from Hardships in America)
Proportion of persons living in families with income above and below 200 percent of poverty and experiencing hardships (Table 8 from Hardships in America)
Poverty rates by state, 1988-1998 (Table 6.14 from The State of Working America 2000-2001)
Comparison of a basic needs budget and the poverty threshold for a one-adult, two-child family (Figure 2a from How Much is Enough?)
Comparison of a basic needs budget and the poverty thresholds for a two-adult, two-child family (Figure 2b from How Much is Enough?)

Key EPI Publications:

Hardships in America: The Real Story of Working Families. Heather Boushey, Chauna Brocht, Bethney Gunderson, Jared Bernstein, 2001.

How Much is Enough: Basic Family Budgets for Working Families. Jared Bernstein, Chauna Brocht and Maggie Spade-Aguilar, 2000.

Resources on Basic Family Budgets:

A century of family budgets in the United States, by David S. Johnson, et al., Monthly Labor Review
http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2001/05/art3abs.htm

Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW)
http://www.wowonline.org/pubs.htm
WOW has completed self-sufficiency studies for over 12 states. Contact Jennifer Brooks at jbrooks@wowonline.org for more information on the self-sufficiency standard.

Wisconsin Family Income Resource Simulation Tool
http://www.wisconsinsfuture.org/
This is an interactive family budget that can be modified to show the impact of various social policies. Contact the Institute for Wisconsin's Future to order a copy.

Resources on the Official Federal Poverty Measure:

Let The War On The Poverty Line Commence by Jared Bernstein, Foundation
for Child Development Working Paper, June 2001
http://www.ffcd.org/bernstein.html

Poverty in the United States: 1999 U.S. Census Bureau
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/povty99html
The Census Bureau's annual report on the number of people in poverty (includes estimates by state and estimates by race, gender, and family type for the nation).

Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates, U.S. Census Bureau
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/saipe/stcty/estimate.html
County-level poverty estimates are available for 1997.

Number of Poor and Poverty Rate, by State: 1980-99, U.S. Census Bureau
http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/histpov/hstpov21.html

Poverty Thresholds, U.S. Census Bureau
http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/threshld.html
Poverty thresholds are used by the Census Bureau to determine the number of people in poverty.

Poverty Guidelines, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/poverty.htm
Poverty guidelines are used to determine eligibility for many government programs.

Resources on Poverty Guidelines, Poverty Thresholds, and the History of the U.S. Poverty Lines, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/contacts.htm
Links to many useful papers on the history of poverty measurement in the U.S.

Poverty USA tour, Catholic Campaign for Human Development
http://www.nccbuscc.org/cchd/povertyusa/tour2.htm.

Resources on Revising the Official Poverty Measure:

"Deciding Who's Poor" (April 2000)
by Barbara Bergmann from Dollars and Sense magazine
http://www.igc.org/dollars/2000/0300bergmann.html
Provides an overview of alternative methods for measuring poverty.

Jobs for the Future --a survey prepared for the Low-Wage Workers in the New Economy Conference (May 2000)
http://www.jff.org/programs/cluster3/projects/careeradvstrat.html
Survey showing most Americans think a family of four requires twice the official poverty threshold to make ends meet

Proposed Changes in the Official Measure of Poverty (November 1999)
by Kathryn Porter, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
http://www.cbpp.org/11-15-99wel.htm
Provides an explanation of the National Research Council's recommendations for changing the poverty thresholds and an explanation of the Census Bureau's Experimental Poverty Measures.

Measuring Poverty: A New Approach (1995)
Constance Citro and Robert Michael, eds., National Academy Press
http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/povmeas/toc.html
This book outlines the National Research Council's Panel on Poverty and Family Assistance's recommendations for changing the poverty thresholds.

Census Bureau's web page on recent poverty measurement research
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/povmeas.html
Includes links to Census Bureau "Experimental Poverty Measures" reports, which provide estimates using the recommendations of the Panel on Poverty and Family Assistance.

Press release stating that the Census Bureau has no plans to adopt the Experimental Poverty Measures as the official poverty measure
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/1999/cb99-204.html

Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin
http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/irp/research/home.htm#povmeas
Proceedings of conferences on poverty measurement.

Drawing the Line: Alternative Poverty Measures and Their Implications for Public Policy (1990)
by Patricia Ruggles, The Urban Institute
http://www.urban.org/pubs/catalog/socserv.htm
This book explores the conceptual issues involved in developing poverty measures.

"Relative or Absolute - New Light on the Behavior of Poverty Lines Over Time" by Gordon M. Fisher, Department of Health and Human Services
http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/papers/relabs.htm
This article examines how, historically, poverty lines have reflected public opinion on what a family needs to meet their basic needs.

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