Report on Experimental Poverty Measures : 1990 to 1997

I. Overview In July of this year the Census Bureau released the report entitled Experimental Poverty Measures 1990 to 1997. This report responded to criticisms of the current official measure and to recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences Panel on Poverty and Family Assistance. This Census Bureau report presents a series of experimental poverty measures that serve to illustrate the effect on the perception of who is poor if the official measure were revised. The experimental measures presented in the Census Bureau report are based on the work of a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) panel contained in their report which was published in 1995, Measuring Poverty: A New Approach (see Citro and Michael, 1995). The NAS panel identified several major weaknesses of the current poverty measure, including the definitions of both thresholds and incomes (or resources), that have become more apparent and problematic during the past three decades.