Monday, November 07, 2011

US to Define New Poverty Formula

The formula being used to calculate the poverty line in the US is about to be updated.  Aside from the issues of reducing people to a series of equations, I'm skeptical - especially after watching India's issues with this - that the redefinition of 'the poverty line' will do good.  In fact I could see it going either way.

"Until this month, the poverty line has been calculated the same way for half a century. It was developed in 1964 as part of Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. Ever since, a debate has ensued about how to determine who’s truly poor..."

1 comment:

Ed Dolan said...

Here is a two-part economic analysis of the new poverty measure:
Part 1 http://tiny.cc/8ivhy
Part 2: http://tiny.cc/cwels