Has Poverty Gotten Worse?

The official U.S. government figures showed an increase in the poverty rate from 11.1 percent in 1973 to 13.8 percent in 1995. However, some maintain that this upward trend is due to defects in the official poverty measure. This paper analyzes alternative measures of poverty and concludes that nearl...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of economic perspectives 1998, Vol.12 (1), p.97-114
Main Author: Triest, Robert K.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Business cycles
Censuses
Children
Consumer economics
Consumer Price Index
Consumption
Economic conditions
Economic growth
Economic theory
Economic trends
Estimates
Expenditures
Food
Income
Income inequality
Inequality
Measurement
Poverty
Poverty rates
Poverty threshold
Recessions
Social policy
Standard of living
Symposium: Measuring Poverty
U.S.A
Unemployment
United States poverty threshold
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Summary:The official U.S. government figures showed an increase in the poverty rate from 11.1 percent in 1973 to 13.8 percent in 1995. However, some maintain that this upward trend is due to defects in the official poverty measure. This paper analyzes alternative measures of poverty and concludes that nearly all reasonable alternatives show similar trends in poverty over the recent past. There has been an increase in the percentage of people in the United States who are poor, although one can argue that the official Census figures either understate or somewhat overstate the increase.
ISSN:0895-3309
1944-7965
DOI:10.1257/jep.12.1.97