Prior to the creation of the SAIPE program, the decennial census long-form was the only source of income distribution and poverty statistics for households, families, and individuals if one needed data for “small” geographic areas, i.e., counties, cities, and other sub-state areas. The ten-year span between censuses left a large gap in information concerning the economic situations of local areas. In the 1990s, federal agencies and the U.S. Congress asked the Census Bureau to develop intercensal estimates of income and poverty. In September 1994, Congress passed the Improving America's Schools Act (PL 103- 382) of which Title I specified that the distribution of federal funds be made to school districts based largely on “the number of children ages 5-17, inclusive, from families below the poverty level on the basis of the most recent satisfactory data... available from the Department of Commerce.”