This paper discusses four approaches to determining or estimating a socially acceptable minimum standard of living.

The evidence presented here supports the use of hardship measures as a valid and useful measure of household well-being.

Many examinations of the middle class use a measure of income to identify the group of interest.

A “standard budget” is a list of goods and services that a family of a specified size and composition would need to live at a designated level of well-being.

Economic well-being can be described using various measures. Two are examined in this study.

Explores how to characterize various percentages of Supplemental Poverty Measure threshold relative to standard budgets and to the official poverty thresholds.

This paper examines the relationship between the official U.S. poverty measure, an improved income-based poverty measure, and measures of material hardship.

This article will discuss the role that the systematically measured judgments of the public at large might play in the measurement of poverty.