Improving the Supplemental Poverty Measure: Two proposals

John A. Bishop (), Jonathan Lee and Lester A. Zeager ()
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John A. Bishop: East Carolina University, U.S.A.
Lester A. Zeager: East Carolina University, U.S.A.

No 429, Working Papers from ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality

Abstract: Questions about the adequacy of the official poverty measure led to the development of the Supplemental Poverty Measure, designed to be released concurrently with the official poverty measure. We raise two concerns with the Supplemental Poverty Measure: a discontinuity in the economies of scale implied by the equivalence scale and the adjustment for local prices using only housing costs. We propose corrections for both issues that can be applied by anyone using the public use files of the Current Population Survey. The changes we propose would have the greatest effect on poverty rates for the elderly and would reduce the difference in poverty rates by metro status.

Keywords: supplemental poverty measure; equivalence scales; spatial price index. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 15 pages
Date: 2017-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-pke and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq201-429

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