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Work Related Expenditures in a New Measure of Poverty

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Working Paper Number SEHSD-WP1996-15 or SIPP-WP-219

This paper reports the general results of research undertaken by Census Bureau Staff. The views expressed are attributable to the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the Census Bureau.

Paper prepared for the 1996 Meetings of the American Statistical Association.

This paper examines various methods of accounting for work related expenses (including child care expenses) in a new measure of poverty. We include a discussion of the treatment of these expenses in defining poverty. We begin with the imputation method as proposed by the Committee on National Statistics’ panel on poverty. In the report released in May of 1995, they recommend a measure of family resources that contains income that is available to buy goods and services minus expenses that cannot be used to buy goods and services. This measure subtracts work related expenditures from income before determining poverty status, along with medical out of pocket expenditures, taxes paid and so on.

We begin with this measure and examine various alternatives using the Current Population Survey. We then use data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation to update the imputations. We reestimate the imputed expenses using the CPS. We then move on to examine the effect of using reported data in the SIPP, and compare resulting distributions of work-related expenses. In all cases we recompute poverty estimates to examine the effect on poverty rates of using these various methods.

In May of 1995 the Committee on National Statistics of the National Research Council released a report on a new measure of poverty. This report presented a series of recommendations concerning the changes that should be incorporated in such a measure. The recommendations included changes to the poverty thresholds or the measurement of need, changes to the measurement of resources, and data sources on which a new poverty measure would be based.

Page Last Revised - October 8, 2021
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