Research on the Supplemental Poverty Measure

The Census Bureau is releasing the research paper, Who is Poor? A New Look With the Supplemental Poverty Measure, plus a number of other technical working papers on the topic. The research paper applies methodology recommended by a federal interagency technical working group to present supplemental poverty estimates. The supplemental poverty measure is based on a more comprehensive definition of poverty and provides an additional look at the impact of federal policies on those in or near poverty. These estimates do not represent the actual supplemental poverty measure because they use 2009 income data combined with 2008 poverty thresholds. Also, these estimates do not replace the official poverty measure released by the Census Bureau in September 2010.