Experimental Poverty Measures

The Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT) of the National Research Council (NRC) convened a workshop on June 15-16, 2004, to review federal research on alternative methods for measuring poverty. The workshop had been requested by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget to evaluate progress in moving toward a new measure of poverty, as recommended by the 1995 report, Measuring Poverty: A New Approach. Experimental Poverty Measures is the summary of that workshop. This report discusses which components of alternative measures are methodologically sound and which might need further refinement,toward the goal of narrowing the number of alternative measures that should be considered.

Table of Contents

• Front Matter
• 1 Introduction and Background
• 2 Setting and Updating Thresholds
• 3 Equivalence Scales
• 4 Geographic Adjustments to Thresholds
• 5 Medical Expenses
• 6 Work-Related and Child Care Expenses
• 7 Housing
• 8 Data Issues, Other Topics, and Future Research
• References
• Appendix A Workshop Agenda
• Appendix B Workshop Participants
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