How+poverty+is+measured

The U.S. has two separate ways of measuring poverty, poverty thresholds and poverty guidelines, however the latter is used by most organizations today.
 * How Poverty is Measured **

Poverty Thresholds were created by a woman named Mollie Orshansky, she worked at the Social Security Administration. The foundation of her poverty thresholds was on the economy food plan. The economy food plan was the cheapest of four food plans, all which were developed by the Department of Agriculture. They used complex procedures to choose the combinations of food in the plan and were form nutritionally sufficient diets. The economy food plan is described as being intended for momentary or crisis use when finances are small. The threshold was calculated by taking the dollar cost of the economy food plan for families or three or more and then multiplied by the costs by a factor of three. The purpose of using a factor of three was because Orshansky figured that families spent about one third of their total income on food, whether eating in home or away from home, during one week.
 * Poverty Thresholds **

The other method of measuring poverty is poverty guidelines. These guidelines are put out every year, usually in January, in the Federal Register by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). They are simpler than the poverty thresholds and are used for administrative purposes, such as determining financial eligibility for certain federal programs.
 * Poverty Guidelines **

**2011 HHS Poverty Guidelines ** **in Family ** || **48 Contiguous ** **States and D.C. ** || **Alaska ** || **Hawaii ** || person, add || 3,820 || 4,780 || 4,390 || **SOURCE: ** //Federal Register//, Vol. 76, No. 13, January 20, 2011, pp. 3637-3638
 * **Persons **
 * 1 || $10,890 || $13,600 || <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">$12,540 ||
 * <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">2 || <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">14,710 || <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">18,380 || <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">16,930 ||
 * <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">3 || <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">18,530 || <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">23,160 || <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">21,320 ||
 * <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">4 || <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">22,350 || <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">27,940 || <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">25,710 ||
 * <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">5 || <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">26,170 || <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">32,720 || <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">30,100 ||
 * <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">6 || <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">29,990 || <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">37,500 || <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">34,490 ||
 * <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">7 || <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">33,810 || <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">42,280 || <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">38,880 ||
 * <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">8 || <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">37,630 || <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">47,060 || <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">43,270 ||
 * <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">For each additional

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> =2011 Annual Update of the HHS Poverty Guidelines for the 48 Contiguous States and the District of Columbia= Persons in family or household ||~ (2) Poverty thresholds for 2009 — published Sep. 2010[|a/] ||~ (3) Column 2 multiplied by 1.016 price inflator[|b/] ||~ (4) Difference between successive Column 3 entries ||~ (5) Average difference in Column 4[|c/] ||~ (6) January 2011 poverty guidelines || Price inflation calculated from Table 1A of U.S. Department of Labor, Consumer Price Index press release (USDL-11-0018), January 14, 2011. (The Consumer Price Index (CPI-U) for all items was 214.537 for calendar year 2009 and 218.056 for calendar year 2010, an increase of 1.6 percent.) The arithmetic average of Column 4 entries, rounded to the nearest multiple of $20. Obtained by multiplying the average poverty threshold for a family of four persons for 2009 ($21,954, from Column 2) by the price increase factor from 2009 to 2010 (1.016) and rounding the result upward to the nearest whole multiple of $50. All other entries in Column 6 are obtained by successive addition or subtraction of the average difference ($3,820) to the size–4 2011 guideline entry ($22,350). ||
 * ~ (1)
 * 1 || $10,956 || $11,131 ||  ||   || $10,890 ||
 * ||  ||   || $3,084 || $3,820 ||   ||
 * 2 || 13,991 || 14,215 ||  ||   || 14,710 ||
 * ||  ||   || 3,157 || 3,820 ||   ||
 * 3 || 17,098 || 17,372 ||  ||   || 18,530 ||
 * ||  ||   || 4,933 || 3,820 ||   ||
 * 4 || 21,954 || 22,305 ||  ||   || 22,350**[|d/]** ||
 * ||  ||   || 4,102 || 3,820 ||   ||
 * 5 || 25,991 || 26,407 ||  ||   || 26,170 ||
 * ||  ||   || 3,468 || 3,820 ||   ||
 * 6 || 29,405 || 29,875 ||  ||   || 29,990 ||
 * ||  ||   || 4,031 || 3,820 ||   ||
 * 7 || 33,372 || 33,906 ||  ||   || 33,810 ||
 * ||  ||   || 3,942 || 3,820 ||   ||
 * 8 || 37,252 || 37,848 ||  ||   || 37,630 ||
 * **Notes:** Column 2 entries are weighted average poverty thresholds from U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, Series P60-238, //Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2009//, Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, September 2010, p. 55.
 * Source: U.S. Department of Health & Human Services ([])**

**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Sources: ** <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. "Poverty Guidelines, Research, and Measurement: Home Page." //Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, HHS//. 31 Jan. 2011. Web. 29 Mar. 2011. [].

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">U.S. Census Bureau | Poverty. "How the Census Bureau Measures Poverty - U.S Census Bureau." //Census Bureau Home Page//. 28 Dec. 2010. Web. 06 Apr. 2011. <http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/about/overview/measure.html>.