American Scorecard:
Measuring Poverty
Brian McDonald
Center on Poverty, Work, & Opportunity
UNC School of Law
Warm-Up Questions
• What does it mean to be poor?
• How much money does it take to
live comfortably?
• Why are people poor?
• Is poverty inevitable?
• What does poverty “look like” in
the United States?
Poverty by the numbers…
• Measuring poverty in this country
provides a sad state of reality. As
of 2010…
– 1 out of every 6 Americans lives in
poverty (52 million people)
– 23 million Americans unemployed
(around 9%)
– 1 out of every 6 Americans suffers
from food insecurity
Measurement of Poverty
• Absolute Measurement
– Current official US measure
– Attempts to define a truly basic, or
absolute, need over time
– Remains constant over time
– Consistently used throughout the
country
– Poverty guidelines are developed by
the Department of Health and
Human Services
Absolute Measurement
• Strengths
– Measurement
used around the
country
– Provides some
information from
specific data that
can be collected
– Remains constant
over time
• Weaknesses
– Does not account
for regional
differences
– Standard of living,
economic
challenges, and
other issues not
taken into account
– Does not reflect
actual poverty in
this country
Other Measurements
• Relative Measurement – Evaluates
poverty relative to a particular social
context including geographic location,
average standard of living (expenditures
and income), or other outside factors.
– For example, the standards used to
measure relative poverty in rural and urban
North Carolina would be different based
on what it actually costs to live based on
an average standard of living.
Other Measurements
• Consumption – Compares a family’s
consumption of goods to a poverty
threshold; can be absolute or relative
(conclusion: if a family spends little,
they have little)
• Self-Reliance – measures “earnings
capacity”; in other words what is a
family capable of doing in society as
compared to a general standard of
living
Other Measurements
• Supplemental Poverty Measure –
Updated measurement being explored
by the Obama administration based on
current economic and social realities
that would focus on a number of
factors including:
• Geography
• Family size
• Medical costs
• Government
policy
• Current
standard of
• Additional
living
needs
Poverty Rates (By State)
US Poverty: Official v. SPM by age
Credit: Graph from the Shriver Brief.
US Poverty: Official v. SPM by race
Credit: Graph from US Census Bureau.
Questions to Consider
• What are the strengths and
weaknesses of using absolute
measurement to assess poverty?
• Do you think the guidelines set by
the Dept. of Health & Human
Services are fair? Why or why not?
• How could we better measure
economic inequality?