Comments for The Supplemental Poverty Measure: Is Child Poverty Really Less of a Problem than We Thought? at http://www.cepr.net , comment 1 to 2 out of 2 comments http://www.cepr.net Sat, 25 May 2013 01:05:00 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/the-supplemental-poverty-measure-does-it-paint-a-more-accurate-picture-of-poverty#comment-17925 Shawwn's comments are well taken. I would put it slightly differently, however. The SPM privileges some needs - such as food and housing - over others, particularly health care and work expenses such as child care, transportation, etc. If you put a need IN the threshold, it is seen automatically as a need, and that you need so much (i.e., what the modal family at the 33rd percentile spends on housing) to meet that need. If you only deduct what is ACTUALLY spent, you are saying that it is a conditional need, a need only to the extent that people spend on it; this is circular of course. If you are too poor to spend little or any money on health care or child care, you are seen as not "needing" it. If you need it, you would spend the money, somehow, is the argument. So you are basically missing the very poverty you are trying to measure - particularly that of working age families with young children. If you put health care and child care into the threshold, then it would greatly increase the poverty among these families, and child poverty would increase. Of course, that is what the Self-Sufficiency Standard does - price levels in this measure for housing, food, etc. are similar to the SPM, but it also includes the costs of working to earn that income, child care, transportation, taxes, as well as health care. As a result, in every state with studies using the Standard, families with children have higher poverty rates than those without, sometimes double the rates. (The Standard is not applied to the elderly, because income is taxed differently, resources are different, and needs are different.) For info on the Standard, see selfsufficiencystandard.org - Diana Pearce Fri, 03 Aug 2012 11:24:55 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/the-supplemental-poverty-measure-does-it-paint-a-more-accurate-picture-of-poverty#comment-17919 How much of this might be accounted for by the fact that the SPM counts the value of school lunches as household income, if I'm remembering correctly. . . . ? - Stephen P Fri, 03 Aug 2012 07:25:51 +0100