Center on Poverty, Work, & Opportunity
Topic: American Scorecard (Measurement & Statistics)
Components
• PowerPoint
• Terms & Concepts
• Documents and Readings
• Suggested Resources
o Websites (Interactive/Links)
o Video Clips
o Books & Films
Terms & Concepts
Absolute Measurement
Class/Status
Consumption
Critical hardships
Department of Agriculture
Department of Health and Human
Services
Department of Labor
Depression
Economic growth
Economic Inequality
Food Stamps/SNAP
Geographic differences
Government
Gross Domestic Product
Income
Inflation
Living wage
Lower Class
Middle Class
Minimum Wage
Poverty
Poverty line
Poverty threshold
Recession
Relative Measurement
Serious hardships
Standard of living
Unemployment
Upper Class
US Census
Documents/Readings:
• “Measuring Poverty: A New Approach” (The National Academies Press):
http://www.nap.edu/html/poverty/summary.html
• “What’s the best way to measure poverty: income or consumption?” (Matthew
Philips, Freakonomics.com) http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/09/14/whatsthe-best-way-to-measure-poverty-income-or-consumption/
• “How We Measure Poverty” (Oregon Center for Public Policy, Jessie Willis):
http://www.ocpp.org/poverty/how/
Websites/Links
• National Center for Children in Poverty (Columbia University) :
http://www.nccp.org/topics/measuringpoverty.html
•
•
Poverty: Experimental Measures (US Census):
http://www.census.gov/hhes/povmeas/
Poverty Reduction and Equity (The World Bank):
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTPOVERTY/EX
TPA/0,,contentMDK:20202198~menuPK:435055~pagePK:148956~piPK:216618~
theSitePK:430367,00.html
Video Clips
• “Measuring Poverty in America, Part 1 of 2” (HouseResourceOrg):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwSlrvDDsPM
• “Measuring Poverty in America, Part 2 of 2” (HouseResourceOrg):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbgFYksAxAY
• “How is poverty measured?” (The World Bank):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFHctW3zQgg
• “Poverty in the United States” (C-SPAN Video): http://www.cspanvideo.org/program/301850-3
• “How Economic Inequality Harms Societies” by Richard Wilkinson (TED Talk):
http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson.html
• “Statistics on Child Poverty” (Machaila Budgeon):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XbxdlSVq_E
•
“Are the Poor getting poorer?” (LearnLiberty.Org):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDhcqua3_W8
Suggested/Selected Resources: Books & Films
• Poverty in America: A Handbook (John Iceland)
• Measuring Poverty in America (United States Congress – House of Representatives)
• Measuring Poverty: A New Approach (National Research Council)
• The Measure of America, 2010-2011: Mapping Risks and Resilience (Kristen Lewis)
• A Framework for Understanding Poverty (Ruby Payne)
• One Nation Underprivileged: Why American Poverty Affects Us All (Mark Robert
Rank)
• So Rich, So Poor: Why It’s So Hard to End Poverty in America (Peter Edelman)