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Poverty Rate
About This Indicator
What Is the Poverty Rate?
The share of all people below the official poverty line, from the Census Bureau. The line was set in the 1960s at three times the cost of a minimal diet, and the measure counts cash income before taxes.
Why Does It Matter?
The line is also the yardstick for help: guidelines drawn from it set who qualifies for Medicaid, school meals, and SNAP. The rate halved from 1959 to 1973, as a long boom and larger Social Security checks raised incomes.
Can Politics Influence It?
Through the job market and cash programs such as Social Security. Food aid, housing aid, and tax credits are left out, so that help does not show; the Supplemental Poverty Measure counts it, and the two can move in opposite directions.
Key Idea
The line is a 1960s standard carried forward by prices alone. When it was set, food took about a third of a family's budget; food's share has since shrunk while housing, child care, and health care claim more.
Scored: A Fall Ranks Better
Source: Census Bureau. Historical Poverty Table 2, all races (timeseries/poverty/histpov2).
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