An Updated Measure of Poverty (Re)Drawing the Line (2023) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 179-191
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From page 179... ...
Those submitting comments were asked to outline their perceived strengths of the supplemental poverty measure (SPM) and to identify aspects in need of improvement.
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From page 180... ...
basic needs categories should be modernized. Zarin Ahmed, Senior Policy Analyst at FPWA, argued that the current SPM methodology results in thresholds that are only slightly higher than the official poverty measure (OPM)
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From page 181... ...
Fremstad et al. addressed this point as well, noting that the National Academies' panel and Interagency Technical Working Group on Developing a Supplemental Poverty Measure did not explicitly address children's developmental needs beyond food, clothing, and shelter, or the related social- and cultural-participation needs.
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From page 182... ...
Theme: Resource Measurement -- Treatment of Credits and Debts Several commenters raised questions about the role of tax credits in estimating consumer unit resources. The FPWA group noted that, while tax credits are important financial resources for households with low incomes, not every household eligible for The Earned Income Tax Credit claims the credit (in tax year 2017, for example, almost 19 percent of eligible filers did not claim the credit in New York)
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From page 183... ...
Burkhauser et al. also expressed concern about the accuracy of SPM resource accounting, emphasizing the substantial resources provided to Americans through health insurance plans provided by their employers or the government.
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From page 184... ...
He proposed that the simplest solution to this temporal problem would be for the Census Bureau to release a separate, limited set of "anchored SPM" trend tables each year, based on a recent threshold adjusted for inflation.
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From page 185... ...
Biderman (Contra Costa County FESP) outlined her organization's perspective that federal poverty measures do not adequately adjust for the San Francisco Bay area's (and other areas')
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From page 186... ...
Hinckley would like to see the Census Bureau formalize this product by: (1) committing to an annual schedule of releasing the ACS SPM; and (2)
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From page 187... ...
His group advocated for removing geographic adjustments from the SPM thresholds. Wimer et al.
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From page 188... ...
To improve the SPM, FPWA urged the panel to consider the views of individuals and families with lived experiences of poverty. Children's HealthWatch expressed difficulty parsing equivalence scale adjustments, pointing out that explanation of the role of equivalence scales is not made adequately clear in documentation published on the Census Bureau's website.
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From page 189... ...
Replacing surveyed SNAP benefits data with state-level administrative data also helps remove statistical error introduced in the imputation process. In her comment, Wheaton pointed out that the Census Bureau and others are actively working on approaches that use linked administrative data and survey data to address the problem of underreporting of program benefits in survey responses.
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From page 190... ...
Hinckley also offered support for use of administrative data to improve the quality of the SPM, but only if inclusion of those data maintains or reduces the current delay in data releases. Hinckley also wondered if monthly poverty estimates from the CPS, which were useful for policy makers in assessing quickly changing economic need during the pandemic, should be formalizing by the Census Bureau as part of the SPM program.
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From page 191... ...
The Wimer group argued, further, that calculating a monthly poverty measure would be useful in capturing intrayear income volatility -- more common in times of economic upheaval, but also a constant reality for some segments of the population. They noted that their team at Columbia University has recently explored and produced variants of a monthly poverty measure, as has a group at the University of Notre Dame and the University of Chicago (though this group produces annual poverty measures on a monthly basis)
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