Annie E. Casey Foundation Calls for Updated Poverty Measure

by Leigh Graham

categories: Children, Federal, Government, Health & Healthcare, Housing, Hunger, Jobs & Unemployment, Nonprofits, Policy, Race Ethnicity Class & Gender, Research, Social Programs, States, The Economy, Women

Published August 01, 2009 @ 12:00PM PT

As I'm scrolling through the weekend poverty news, I see that this week the Annie E. Casey Foundation released its 20th annual Kids Count report on child poverty in the U.S.  The information is presented in a user-friendly on-line  "data book" that I recommend checking out to learn more about the particulars of your state.

I took a look at the summary brief of the report and was pleased to see that in their recommendations for making better use of data to drive policy, that improvements include updating the US poverty measure to reflect contemporary economic and political realities.  Why collect data if it's based on outmoded definitions of hardship?  Excellent point!  More on this below the fold.

KnoxNews.com has a handy round-up of the key findings in the report, based on data collected through 2006 (the current recession will be reflected in their next report):

The report documented improvements since 2000 in the infant mortality rate, child death rate, teen death rate, high school dropout rate, and teens not in school and not working. Four areas have worsened: low-birthweight babies, children living with jobless or underemployed parents, children in poverty, and children in single-parent families. (my emphases)

Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi - Katrina's darlings, weep - continue to rank worst among states for child well-being.

I rarely do this, but this extensive block quote from KnoxNews.com captures perfectly efforts to redefine the poverty measure is - check it out after the jump.

In its special report on national data, the Casey Foundation said "perhaps the single most glaring shortfall comes in our efforts to measure poverty, the key performance indicator that rises above all others in its impact on children's futures."

The poverty formula still used by the federal government, which Casey called "thoroughly outdated," was developed in the 1960s. It calculates the cost of a basic grocery budget for a given family size and multiplies the total by three because food, in the ' 60s, represented one-third of a typical family budget.

The formula has not been recalculated since then even though, according to Casey, food now accounts for only about one-seventh of a typical family's budget.

The formula takes no account of child care, transportation, health insurance, and certain government benefits such as food stamps and housing vouchers. Also - except for Alaska and Hawaii - it does not reflect regional differences in the cost of living.

McCarthy said the National Academy of Sciences has developed some recommendations for a new formula that would take many of these additional factors into consideration, and a bill reflecting the proposals has been introduced in Congress.

Skeptics in various camps worry that any changes might cause harm by either increasing or decreasing the number of families officially defined as poor, said McCarthy. "But the reality is, we need an accurate count."

The poverty measure - used to determine eligibility for various benefits - has been a source of concern to many advocacy groups over the years.

Kinsey Dinan, a senior policy associate with the National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University, said the current system potentially disadvantages families that don't receive substantial government assistance and those living in areas with high living costs.

She said President Barack Obama's administration has shown interest in the issue and might be able to make changes through some sort of directive without waiting for Congress to act.

Under the current guidelines, the poverty level in 2009 is $22,050 a year for a family of four.