Following decades of research on poverty measurement and guidance from a National Academies of Sciences Panel and the Interagency Technical Working Group on Developing a Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), in 2011 the Census Bureau released the first annual SPM report. Since this first publication, no major changes have been made to the SPM, but research has been ongoing at the BLS and Census Bureau on potential improvements and validation of prior assumptions. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has established a new interagency technical working group, which has set 2021 as a target for making methodological improvements to the measure.
This presentation provides an overview of potential changes to SPM resources under consideration for 2021. This presentation was prepared for the Spring 2020 SPM Expert Meeting at the Brookings Institute held May 28, 2020.