An official website of the United States government
Here’s how you know
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock (
) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) began publishing poverty statistics in the early 1960s, using a poverty measure developed by staff economist Mollie Orshansky (1963, 1965a). This measure had a set of poverty thresholds for different types of families that consisted of the cost of a minimum adequate diet multiplied by three to allow for other expenses. The threshold value for the base year 1963 for a family of two adults and two children was about $3,100. To determine a family’s poverty status, its resources, we defined as before-tax money income, were compared with the appropriate threshold.
Related Information
PUBLICATION
Supplemental Poverty Measure PublicationsSome content on this site is available in several different electronic formats. Some of the files may require a plug-in or additional software to view.
Top