FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MONDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1999
Public Information Office CB99-204
301-457-3030/301-457-3670 (fax)
301-457-1037 (TDD)
e-mail: pio@census.gov
CORRECTION: Today's New York Times Story on Poverty in Error
Contrary to a front-page story in this morning's NEW YORK TIMES, the
U.S. Census Bureau is not revising the definition of poverty established
by the federal government in the 1960s.
The news story is fundamentally in error when it states that "the Census
Bureau has begun to revise its definition of what constitutes poverty in
the United States, experimenting with a formula that would drop millions
more families below the poverty line." The error is rooted in the
assertion that the Bureau has a "new approach" to this definition which
would "raise the income threshold for living above poverty to $19,500 for
a family of four, from the $16,500 now considered sufficient."
The Census Bureau has not revised the poverty definition, nor could it
do so, since this decision must be made by the Office of Management and
Budget. The Census Bureau is collaborating with OMB and other federal
statistical agencies in a long-term study of many alternative
"experimental" measures of poverty, none of which has been selected to
replace the current definition, in a review which began some years ago and
will not be completed for several more years.
The Bureau's research was called for by a 1995 report issued by the
National Academy of Sciences that recommended sweeping changes in the way
poverty is measured, such as counting non-cash benefits and subtracting
taxes from income. The different measures all use current data taken from
the Bureau's Current Population Survey, which is used to produce the
official poverty estimates published annually. They were published
recently by the Bureau in a report, Experimental Poverty
Measures: 1990-1997.
Daniel H. Weinberg, Chief of the Bureau's Housing and Household Economic
Statistics Division has responded to the erroneous news report with a
"Letter to the Editor" to the New York Times. Dr. Weinberg's letter is
attached.
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