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Thesia I. Garner

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Thesia I. Garner is a senior research economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Division of Price and Index Number Research. She has been with the division since 1984 when she graduated with a doctorate from the University of Maryland.

For the past several years, Garner has focused her research on developing and improving poverty thresholds that are based on U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey data. In this work, she has examined how different assumptions can affect the thresholds as well as the expansion of what is covered in the expenditure-based thresholds, for example, medical care. Garner has also conducted research on subjective poverty measures; measures of economic well-being, including expenditure distributions; and valuing of owner-occupied housing.

She has been published in numerous professional economics journals, including the Economics of Transition, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Housing Economics, Journal of Human Resources, Journal of Income Distribution, Journal of Population Economics, Review of Economics and Statistics, Review of Income and Wealth, and Southern Economic Journal. Book chapters include those in “Inequality, Welfare and Poverty: Theory and Measurement,” “The Distribution of Welfare and Household Production: International Perspectives,” “Models and Measurement of Welfare and Inequality,” and “Price and Productivity Measurement.”