The Supplemental Poverty Measure: A Joint Project between the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics

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Introduction

The Census Bureau released a report in November of 2011 with Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) estimates for calendar year 2010. This report represented a joint effort between the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). BLS has responsibility for developing expenditure - based SPM  poverty thresholds using the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CE). The Census Bureau is responsible for preparing geographic adjustments for the thresholds, estimating component parts to produce a measure of resources, creating an economic unit of analysis and computing poverty statistics using the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS). The Census Bureau also prepares a report that summarizes poverty statistics for the total US population as well as population subgroups and a public use data file that contains the components of the SPM for outside researchers to analyze. Both the BLS and the Census Bureau are tasked with conducting research on methodological improvements to the various components of the SPM.

Page Last Revised - October 8, 2021