Since the 1960's, a dramatic change has occurred in how people receive their income. Transfer payments, largely from government programs, have become a large source of income. As government programs became more important, the need for better information to evaluate them became more apparent. To fill this need, a new survey, the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) vas developed. SIPP was designed to record people's receipts of income, including transfers, and their participation in government programs month by month (Nelson at a1., 1985, p. 1).

SIPP's unique monthly data allow different definitions of poverty. How poverty is defined affects the measured extent of poverty and the groups who are included among the poor. Issues related to poverty, including its definition and measurement, are particularly important to nonmetro areas, because poverty has historically been more prevalent in nonmetro areas, according to the official poverty statistics (Deavers et al., 1988).

This paper presents results from a study that used SIPP data to examine poverty in nonmetro areas. First, a brief history of poverty measurement in the United States is outlined. A description of the survey comes next, followed by the definitions used in the analysis. Finally, how different poverty definitions alter the extent and nature of nonmetro poverty are examined. In particular, this paper will address the following questions:

Does the definition of poverty make a difference in the extent of poverty in nonmetro areas?

Do nonmetro areas have proportionately more poor than metro areas under all definitions considered?

Does the composition of the nonmetro poor vary substantially under different definitions?

Is any particular definition preferable for examining nonmetro poverty?

The research described below is the result of cooperation between two Federal agencies: the Economic Research Service (ERS) and the Census Bureau. This cooperation allowed ERS personnel to use the internal SIPP files at the Census Bureau, which was necessary to access a variable that completely differentiated between metro and nonmetro cases. Details are discussed below.