Alarming new census figures released today show that 49.1 million Americans – that’s 16 percent of us – are in poverty, a good three million more than the government thought in September.
You can thank Mike Bloomberg for that.
Those sobering statistics were put together using a new method called the Supplemental Federal Poverty Measure, which takes a lead from a similar report the city’s Center for Economic Opportunity put out in 2008.
Though they don’t replace the existing federal measure – largely unchanged since 1969 – they do take more variables into account.
Unlike in the ’60s, when USDA statistician Barbara Orshansky based the measure on whether a family earned more or less than three times the average price of groceries, the report factors in housing costs, medical bills, taxes, and welfare benefits in drawing the poverty line. That method allows for the consumer price fluctuations of the last four decades, correcting mistakes that saw those who get by on benefits counted as poor while low earners struggling with skyrocketing rents were left out.
It painted a bleaker picture than was previously assumed: though the report raised the household income threshold from $20,444 to $26,138, poverty levels still rose from 18.9 to 23 percent. That evidently struck a chord with the Census Bureau, whose similarly unsettling findings were gathered in much the same way.
“If we are going to successfully fight poverty, we need data that captures the challenges that poor households face as well as the benefits conveyed by our most significant government supports,” the mayor said, calling the initiative his office took “groundbreaking” and “pioneering.”
“The decision to adopt this measure is not one that was made lightly; we know that a greater proportion of the American people are poor under this Supplemental Measure and this is, of course, an attention-grabbing finding. But it is important to have a measure that can accurately tell us what’s going on and – especially in tough times – it is critical that we know what programs really help lift individuals and families out of poverty.”
Bloomberg’s initial efforts may continue to resonate nationally. Poverty measures are used to allocate federal funding, which is why the old measure remained unchanged for so long: the Congressional “super-committee,” meanwhile, will suggest $1.2 trillion in spending cuts by a Nov. 23rd deadline.
Number-crunchers can read the whole census report here.
