Developing a Supplemental Poverty Measure

Ashley Edwards, U.S. Census Bureau

In 2009, the Office of Management and Budget formed an Interagency Technical Working Group on Developing a Supplemental Poverty Measure in order to design a new poverty measure that incorporated alternative income definitions and resource thresholds. The U.S. Census Bureau, in cooperation with the Bureau of Labor Statistics, has since been charged with implementing the suggestions made by the Interagency Technical Working Group, and will release the new Supplemental Poverty Measure in the fall of 2011 based on data from the Annual Social and Economic Supplement to the Current Population Survey (CPS ASEC). This poster is designed to inform an academic audience of the 1) methodological design of the Supplemental Poverty Measure; 2) preliminary comparisons of poverty levels calculated using the official measure and newly designed Supplemental Poverty Measure; and (3)the potential impact of the Supplemental Poverty to the research and policy making community.