For information about how the poverty guidelines are used or how income is defined in a particular program, contact the federal (or other) office that is responsible for that program. |
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There are two slightly different versions of the [U.S.] federal poverty measure:
The poverty thresholds are the original version of the federal poverty measure. They are updated each year by the Census Bureau (although they were originally developed by Mollie Orshansky of the Social Security Administration). The thresholds are used mainly for statistical purposes — for instance, preparing estimates of the number of Americans in poverty each year. (In other words, all official poverty population figures are calculated using the poverty thresholds, not the guidelines.) Poverty thresholds since 1980 and weighted average poverty thresholds since 1959 are available on the Census Bureau’s Web site. For an example of how the Census Bureau applies the thresholds to a family's income to determine its poverty status, see "How the Census Bureau Measures Poverty" on the Census Bureau's web site.
The poverty guidelines are the other version of the federal poverty measure. They are issued each year in the Federal Register by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The guidelines are a simplification of the poverty thresholds for use for administrative purposes — for instance, determining financial eligibility for certain federal programs.
(For further details on the poverty guidelines, including the actual figures, return to the main Poverty Guidelines, Research, and Measurement page, and click on the appropriate line there.)
The poverty guidelines are sometimes loosely referred to as the “federal poverty level” (FPL), but that phrase is ambiguous and should be avoided, especially in situations (e.g., legislative or administrative) where precision is important.
A more extensive discussion of poverty thresholds and poverty guidelines is available on the Institute for Research on Poverty’s Web site.
For information on more than 80 means-tested programs — both programs using the poverty guidelines and programs not using the poverty guidelines — see Cash and Noncash Benefits for Persons with Limited Income: Eligibility Rules, Recipient and Expenditure Data, FY2000-FY2002 (CRS Report for Congress – Order Code RL32233), Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, November 25, 2003. (This report is available upon request from the office of your U.S. Senator or Representative.)
[ Is there a single definition of “income” that is used with the poverty guidelines? ]
For general information about the poverty guidelines (but NOT for information about a particular program or about how a program uses the guidelines), see Gordon M. Fisher, “Poverty Guidelines for 1992” [a background paper on the poverty guidelines], Social Security Bulletin, Vol. 55, No. 1, Spring 1992, pp. 43-46; or contact Gordon Fisher, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Room 404E, Humphrey Building, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 200 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20201 — telephone: (202) 690-7507; e-mail address: gordon.fisher@hhs.gov (NOTE: If you are looking for information about the number of people in poverty, see the next paragraph instead of contacting Gordon Fisher.)
For information about the number of people in poverty since 1959 or for general information about the Census Bureau’s poverty thresholds, contact the Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division’s information staff (HHES-Info), Room G251, Federal Office Building #3, U.S. Census Bureau, Washington, D.C. 20233-8500 — telephone: (301) 763-3242; e-mail address: hhes-info@census.gov; or you may visit the Poverty section of the Census Bureau’s web site at: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty.html.
For historical tables showing the poverty thresholds back to 1959 and the poverty guidelines back to 1965, see Tables 3.E1 (poverty thresholds) and 3.E8 (poverty guidelines) in the most recent Annual Statistical Supplement of the Social Security Bulletin. These tables are also available on the Social Security Administration’s Web site at http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/statcomps/supplement/2002/3e.pdf; to access them, one needs the latest version of the Adobe Acrobat Reader, available at www.adobe.com. Another historical table showing the poverty thresholds back to 1959 — one that can be accessed without the Adobe Acrobat Reader — is available on the Census Bureau’s Web site at http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/histpov/hstpov1.html. For the poverty guidelines since 1982, summary figures and Federal Register references are available.
For information about how Mollie Orshansky developed the poverty thresholds during the 1960’s, see Gordon M. Fisher, “The Development and History of the Poverty Thresholds,” Social Security Bulletin, Vol. 55, No. 4, Winter 1992, pp. 3-14. (This article is available on the Social Security Administration History Page at http://www.ssa.gov/history/fisheronpoverty.html.) For a 2-page summary of this article, see Gordon M. Fisher, “The Development and History of the U.S. Poverty Thresholds — A Brief Overview,” GSS/SSS Newsletter [Newsletter of the Government Statistics Section and the Social Statistics Section of the American Statistical Association], Winter 1997, pp. 6-7. For an 88-page revision of the unpublished paper from which the Social Security Bulletin article was condensed, visit the Census Bureau’s Poverty Measurement Web site at http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/povmeas/papers/orshansky.html (or contact Gordon Fisher at the address given above). For the original article in which Orshansky presented the poverty thresholds, see Mollie Orshansky, “Counting the Poor: Another Look at the Poverty Profile,” Social Security Bulletin, Vol. 28, No. 1, January 1965, pp. 3-29 — reprinted in Social Security Bulletin, Vol. 51, No. 10, October 1988, pp. 25-51. (A list of selected articles and papers by Orshansky on the poverty thresholds and the poverty population is available.)
In August 1969, the U.S. Bureau of the Budget (the predecessor of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget) designated the Census Bureau poverty thresholds as the federal government’s official statistical definition of poverty. The latest version of the document embodying this designation is Statistical Policy Directive No. 14 (“Definition of Poverty for Statistical Purposes”). The text of this directive may be found on p. 35 of the Commerce Department’s Statistical Policy Handbook (1978); in the Federal Register, Vol. 43, No. 87, May 4, 1978, p. 19269; and on the Census Bureau’s Poverty Measurement Web site at http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/povmeas/ombdir14.html
In May 1995, the Panel on Poverty and Family Assistance appointed by the National Research Council’s Committee on National Statistics issued a report (Constance F. Citro and Robert T. Michael (editors), Measuring Poverty: A New Approach, Washington, D.C., National Academy Press, 1995) which proposed a new approach for developing an official poverty measure for the U.S. — although it did not propose a specific set of dollar figures. For further information on this report, contact the Committee on National Statistics, HA 192, National Research Council, 2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20418 — telephone: (202)334-3093; e-mail address: cnstat@nas.edu; or you may visit the WorldWide Web page for the report at http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/poverty/. The full text of the report is on the Census Bureau’s Poverty Measurement Web site at http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/povmeas/toc.html. (To view the text, you will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader program, which is available at www.adobe.com.)
For historical information about unofficial poverty lines in the United States before 1965, see Gordon M. Fisher, “From Hunter to Orshansky: An Overview of (Unofficial) Poverty Lines in the United States from 1904 to 1965” (unpublished paper, October 1993--revised August 1997). This paper is available on the Census Bureau’s Poverty Measurement Web site at http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/povmeas/papers/hstorsp4.html (or contact Gordon Fisher at the above address). A 7-page summary is also available.
For historical information about the income elasticity of the poverty line — the tendency of poverty lines to rise in real terms over time as the real income of the general population rises — see Gordon M. Fisher, “Relative or Absolute — New Light on the Behavior of Poverty Lines Over Time,” GSS/SSS Newsletter [Joint Newsletter of the Government Statistics Section and the Social Statistics Section of the American Statistical Association], Summer 1996, pp. 10-12. This brief article was condensed from a 78-page paper which assembles historical evidence on this subject not only from the U.S. but also from Britain, Canada, and Australia. This 78-page paper is available on the Census Bureau’s Poverty Measurement Web site at http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/povmeas/papers/elastap4.html (or contact Gordon Fisher at the above address). A 9-page summary is also available.
The following papers about the history and other aspects of U.S. poverty lines are also available from Gordon Fisher at the above address:
Gordon M. Fisher, “‘Enough for a Family to Live On?’ — Questions from Members of the American Public and New Perspectives from British Social Scientists” (a paper presented at the 23rd Annual Research Conference of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management in Washington, D.C.), November 2001 [reviews four approaches to determining a socially acceptable minimum standard of living (poverty) that are being used in Britain and other European countries; This paper is available on the Census Bureau’s Poverty Measurement web site at http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/povmeas/papers/ndqppr1c.nnt.pdf.]
Gordon M. Fisher, “Reasons for Measuring Poverty in the United States in the Context of Public Policy — A Historical Review, 1916-1995,” August 1999 — revised June 2000.
Gordon M. Fisher, “How Many Americans Were Really in Poverty in 1947? Estimates of the U.S. Poverty Population Between 1947 and 1963 Under Two Contemporary (1949 and 1959) Definitions of Poverty” (a paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association in Baltimore, Maryland), October 1999.
Gordon Fisher, “Income (In-)Adequacy? The Official Poverty Line, Possible Changes, and Some Historical Lessons,” Community Action Digest, Vol. 1, Issue 1, Spring 1999, pp. 25-33.
Gordon M. Fisher, “Setting American Standards of Poverty: A Look Back,” Focus [newsletter of the Institute for Research on Poverty], Vol. 19, No. 2, Spring 1998, pp. 47-52. [This issue of Focus is available in Adobe Acrobat format on the Institute for Research on Poverty’s Web site at http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/irp/pubs/foc192.pdf.]
Gordon M. Fisher, “Disseminating the Administrative Version and Explaining the Administrative and Statistical Versions of the Federal Poverty Measure,” Clinical Sociology Review, Vol. 15, 1997, pp. 163-182 [includes a section on the income elasticity of the poverty line and a section on whether poverty lines are necessarily “arbitrary”].
Gordon M. Fisher, “Poverty Lines and Measures of Income Inadequacy in the United States Since 1870: Collecting and Using a Little-Known Body of Historical Material” (a paper presented at the 22nd Meeting of the Social Science History Association in Washington, D.C.), October 1997.
Gordon M. Fisher, “Some Popular Beliefs About the U.S. Poverty Line as Reflected in Inquiries from the Public,” The Sociologist [Newsletter of the District of Columbia Sociological Society], Vol. 30, No. 2, October 1996 [p. 6].
David Gordon and Paul Spicker (editors), The International Glossary on Poverty, London, Zed Books, 1999.
The Comparative Research Programme on Poverty (CROP) published this glossary as part of the series of CROP International Studies in Poverty Research. The glossary defines almost 200 technical terms used in contemporary scholarly research on poverty. Each entry provides an explanation of the term in question and gives a list of relevant journal articles and books. The glossary was compiled by academics from Britain, other European countries, and international agencies. The glossary is intended to help overcome current difficulties arising from the absence of an agreed vocabulary, and to familiarize persons in one discipline with terms and concepts used in other relevant disciplines. A special effort was made to include non-Western approaches and concepts in order to facilitate comparative poverty studies. Further information about the glossary was available on the CROP Internet site, but information about CROP’s publications is temporarily unavailable while it is being reorganized. However, some information about this book can be found at: http://www.unhabitat.org/HD/hdv5n2/pubvid.htm.
Return to the main Poverty Guidelines, Research, and Measurement page.
Last Revised: March 16, 2004
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