Current Population Survey (CPS) Table Creator II (with Customizable Income and Poverty Definitions) For the Annual Social and Economic Supplement

Detailed Examples Subsets Define Your Table Variables Statistics Related Sites

Alternative Poverty Examples

1. Create a table using the official poverty definition
2. Create a table that includes one additional income component
3. Change the percent from 100% to 135%
4. Create a table using a relative poverty scale threshold
5. Change the percent from 100% to 60%

1. Create a table using the official poverty definition
   • Note that the table produced using the Poverty Status - Alternative variable may not exactly match the published numbers. To match published numbers, use the Poverty Status variable or the Income-to-Poverty Ratio variable in your table structure instead of Poverty Status - Alternative.
   • To create a table that shows Health Insurance Coverage by Poverty Status - Alternative:
     • The tables shown below were created from the 2005 files. To recreate these numbers, select "2005" as the Year in section 1
     • Official poverty measurement is based on the poverty universe, slightly smaller than All People. Select "Persons in Poverty Universe" as the universe in section 2
     • select "Health Insurance Coverage" from the First Row variable selection box in section 4
     • select "Poverty Status - Alternative" from the First Column variable selection box in section 4
     • Let's also show the percent in poverty. Select "Poverty Status - Alternative" from the Percentages By selection box in section 5
     • Retain all the default selections in section 8; Money Income is the proper choice for the official poverty estimates. Alternatively, you can select one of the other pre-defined incomes or customize the income to be one or more of the 36 available income sources.
     • press the "Get Table" button at the bottom of the page (or preceding section 8)
     • this creates the table below

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   CPS Data Collected in Year: 2005

   Persons in Poverty Universe

   Percentages by Poverty Status - Alternative

   (Sums in Thousands)

   NOTE: The Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement is an annual survey of approximately 78,000 households nationwide. Therefore, use extreme caution when making inferences when the cell sizes are small.

   Some CPS questions, such as income, ask about the previous year. Others, such as age, refer to the time of the survey. The column labels indicate any subject with a reference year which differs from the survey year.

   
   

   	Totals		Poverty Status - Alternative in 2004
   			Below 100%		100% and above
   	Persons		Persons		Persons
   	Sum	PCT	Sum	PCT	Sum	PCT
   Totals	290,617	100.0%	37,029	12.7%	253,588	87.3%
   Health Insurance Coverage in 2004	247,268	100.0%	25,681	10.4%	221,586	89.6%
   Insured
   Uninsured	43,349	100.0%	11,347	26.2%	32,002	73.8%

   
   

   Source: U.S. Census Bureau

   Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement, 2005

   Poverty Status - Alternative uses: (1) Poverty Threshold: Official Poverty Threshold with CPI-U but No Geographical Price Adjustment and (2) Income Definition: Money Family Income.

   
   

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2. Create a table that includes one additional income component
   • Suppose you want to add one component, Food Stamps, to the Money Income components
     • NOTE: If you previously created the first example table, then use the Back button in your browser to return to the selection page. Using the Back button allows your browser to retain the information from your previous table creation. This saves you keystrokes when you want to create another similar table. The steps below presume you have not previously created the previous example table.
     • select "Customize your own income definition" in the Income Defintion portion of section 8
     • check all 23 of the boxes corresponding to the Money Income sources (see the Income Definitions link which identifies the income components for each of the pre-defined incomes). Also check the Food Stamps box.
     • press the "Get Table" button at the bottom of the page
     • this creates the table below -- note that including Food Stamps reduced the percent in poverty from 12.7% to 12.1%

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   CPS Data Collected in Year: 2005

   Persons in Poverty Universe

   Percentages by Poverty Status - Alternative

   (Sums in Thousands)

   NOTE: The Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement is an annual survey of approximately 78,000 households nationwide. Therefore, use extreme caution when making inferences when the cell sizes are small.

   Some CPS questions, such as income, ask about the previous year. Others, such as age, refer to the time of the survey. The column labels indicate any subject with a reference year which differs from the survey year.

   
   

   	Totals		Poverty Status - Alternative in 2004
   			Below 100%		100% and above
   	Persons		Persons		Persons
   	Sum	PCT	Sum	PCT	Sum	PCT
   Totals	290,617	100.0%	35,296	12.1%	255,321	87.9%
   Health Insurance Coverage in 2004	247,268	100.0%	24,272	9.8%	222,996	90.2%
   Insured
   Uninsured	43,349	100.0%	11,024	25.4%	32,325	74.6%

   
   

   Source: U.S. Census Bureau

   Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement, 2005

   Poverty Status - Alternative uses: (1) Poverty Threshold: Official Poverty Threshold with CPI-U but No Geographical Price Adjustment and (2) Income Definition: Customized Family Income.

   Customized Income: You selected components 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 24 25 26 30 31 32 33 (See the Income Definitions page for income component documentation)

   
   

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3. Change the percent from 100% to 135%
   • To create a table with a different percentage of the poverty threshold (note that this is the ONLY way in CPS Table Creator to get percents, such as 135% or 185%, other than the pre-determined cutoffs allowed for the Income-to-Poverty Ratio variable):
     • after producing the table in example 2, press the browser's "Back" button
     • enter "135" in the "Income-to-Poverty Ratio Percent Cutoff" box in the Poverty Thresholds portion of section 8.
     • press the "Get Table" button at the bottom of the page (or preceding section 8)
     • this creates the table below -- note that the labels in the table now say "Below 135%" and "135% and above"

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   CPS Data Collected in Year: 2005

   Persons in Poverty Universe

   Percentages by Poverty Status - Alternative

   (Sums in Thousands)

   NOTE: The Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement is an annual survey of approximately 78,000 households nationwide. Therefore, use extreme caution when making inferences when the cell sizes are small.

   Some CPS questions, such as income, ask about the previous year. Others, such as age, refer to the time of the survey. The column labels indicate any subject with a reference year which differs from the survey year.

   
   

   	Totals		Poverty Status - Alternative in 2004
   			Below 135%		135% and above
   	Persons		Persons		Persons
   	Sum	PCT	Sum	PCT	Sum	PCT
   Totals	290,617	100.0%	54,285	18.7%	236,331	81.3%
   Health Insurance Coverage in 2004	247,268	100.0%	38,589	15.6%	208,679	84.4%
   Insured
   Uninsured	43,349	100.0%	15,696	36.2%	27,653	63.8%

   
   

   Source: U.S. Census Bureau

   Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement, 2005

   Poverty Status - Alternative uses: (1) Poverty Threshold: Official Poverty Threshold with CPI-U but No Geographical Price Adjustment and (2) Income Definition: Customized Family Income.

   Customized Income: You selected components 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 24 25 26 30 31 32 33 (See the Income Definitions page for income component documentation)

   
   

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4. Create a table using a relative poverty scale threshold
   • To create a table that uses the OECD Equivalence Scale (1) applied to Money Income:
     • after producing the table in example 3, press the browser's "Back" button
     • select "OECD Equivalence Scale (1)" as the Poverty Threshold option in section 8
     • enter "100" in the "Income-to-Poverty Ratio Percent Cutoff or Equivalence Scale Income Percent Cutoff" box in the Poverty Thresholds portion of section 8.
     • select "Money Income" in the Income Defintion portion of section 8
     • press the "Get Table" button at the bottom of the page (or preceding section 8)
     • this creates the table below -- note that this produces a percent Below 100% of "49.9%", or roughly half the equivalized incomes are below the median equivalized income. Note that the income threshold is displayed in the table footnotes.

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   CPS Data Collected in Year: 2005

   Persons - All

   Percentages by Poverty Status - Alternative

   (Sums in Thousands)

   NOTE: The Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement is an annual survey of approximately 78,000 households nationwide. Therefore, use extreme caution when making inferences when the cell sizes are small.

   Some CPS questions, such as income, ask about the previous year. Others, such as age, refer to the time of the survey. The column labels indicate any subject with a reference year which differs from the survey year.

   
   

   	Totals		Poverty Status - Alternative in 2004
   			Below 100%		100% and above
   	Persons		Persons		Persons
   	Sum	PCT	Sum	PCT	Sum	PCT
   Totals	291,166	100.0%	145,269	49.9%	145,897	50.1%
   Health Insurance Coverage in 2004	247,669	100.0%	113,102	45.7%	134,567	54.3%
   Insured
   Uninsured	43,498	100.0%	32,167	74.0%	11,331	26.0%

   
   

   Source: U.S. Census Bureau

   Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement, 2005

   Poverty Status - Alternative uses: (1) Poverty Threshold: OECD Equivalence Scale 1 Threshold and (2) Income Definition: Money Family Income. Median Income Threshold: $27,240.

   
   

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5. Change the percent from 100% to 60%
   • To create a table that uses the OECD Equivalence Scale (1) and 60% of the equivalized Money Income:
     • after producing the table in example 4, press the browser's "Back" button
     • enter "60" in the "Income-to-Poverty Ratio Percent Cutoff or Equivalence Scale Income Percent Cutoff" box in the Poverty Thresholds portion of section 8.
     • press the "Get Table" button at the bottom of the page (or preceding section 8)
     • this creates the table below -- identifying those with equivalized incomes below 60% of the median equivalized income

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   CPS Data Collected in Year: 2005

   Persons - All

   Percentages by Poverty Status - Alternative

   (Sums in Thousands)

   NOTE: The Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement is an annual survey of approximately 78,000 households nationwide. Therefore, use extreme caution when making inferences when the cell sizes are small.

   Some CPS questions, such as income, ask about the previous year. Others, such as age, refer to the time of the survey. The column labels indicate any subject with a reference year which differs from the survey year.

   
   

   	Totals		Poverty Status - Alternative in 2004
   			Below 60%		60% and above
   	Persons		Persons		Persons
   	Sum	PCT	Sum	PCT	Sum	PCT
   Totals	291,166	100.0%	79,834	27.4%	211,333	72.6%
   Health Insurance Coverage in 2004	247,669	100.0%	59,108	23.9%	188,561	76.1%
   Insured
   Uninsured	43,498	100.0%	20,726	47.6%	22,772	52.4%

   
   

   Source: U.S. Census Bureau

   Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement, 2005

   Poverty Status - Alternative uses: (1) Poverty Threshold: OECD Equivalence Scale 1 Threshold and (2) Income Definition: Money Family Income. Median Income Threshold: $16,344.

   
   

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