Alternative Measures of Income Poverty and the Anti-Poverty Effects of Taxes and Transfers
June 2005
Working Paper Number:
CES-05-08
Abstract
The Census Bureau prepared a number of alternative income-based measures of poverty to illustrate the distributional impacts of several alternatives to the official measure. The paper examines five income variants for two different units of analysis (families and households) for two different assumptions about inflation (the historical Consumer Price Index and a 'Research Series' alternative that uses current methods) for two different sets of thresholds (official and a formula-based alternative base on three parameters). The poverty rate effects are analyzed for the total population, the distributional effects are analyzed using poverty shares, and the anti-poverty effects of taxes and transfers are analyzed using a percentage reduction in poverty rates. Suggestions for future research are included.
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:
expenditure,
revenue,
inflation,
salary,
budget,
household,
tax,
welfare,
poverty,
distribution,
family
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Bureau of Labor Statistics,
Office of Management and Budget,
Bureau of Economic Analysis,
University of Maryland,
Urban Institute,
Current Population Survey,
Social Security,
Earned Income Tax Credit,
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families,
National Academy of Sciences,
Social and Economic Supplement
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