Poverty Estimates: Political Implications and Other Issues

Abstract

This paper contends that the official poverty estimates of the federal government reflect a conservative bias. The argument is supported mainly by a review of the evidence on the shortcomings of the government's procedures in measuring and estimating poverty. Five limitations of the procedures are highlighted and discussed, and the general conclusion is that the government's approach leads to a substantial under‐estimation of poverty. Given the historical and contemporary government policies toward the poor, there is little reason to be optimistic about any significant change in the government's procedures, unless they are changes that have the effect of further increasing the under‐estimation.