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New Ways to Measure Poverty in New York City
Many social scientists and statistical experts have noted that the official definition of poverty is almost 50 years old and needs to be revised. Mathematica is helping New York City’s Center for Economic Opportunity (CEO) in the development of a new measure. The CEO, under the leadership of Mark Levitan, began to develop a new measure of poverty in New York City in 2006, based on the recommendations of the Panel on Poverty and Family Assistance appointed by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). In a 1995 report, Measuring Poverty: A New Approach, the panel recommended changes to both the thresholds and the measurement of resources in the nation’s official measure of poverty.
The CEO used data collected in the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) from 2005 to 2008. This new measure takes into account housing and utility costs, child care costs, nutritional assistance, and medical expenses; some of which are imputed from external sources. The CEO is currently computing the variance of this measure using the ACS procedures. Mathematica is working with CEO to create a methodology that accounts for variance associated with the imputed data.
Recently the U.S. Department of Commerce announced it would also begin producing an supplemental poverty measure based on the NAS recommendations. Although the official poverty measure remains in use, this new supplemental measurement will create a more realistic assessment of poverty for policymakers at both the local and federal level.