[PEN-L:6752] Re: Poverty query

["Max B. Sawicky" <maxsaw@xxxxxxxxx>]

PBurns@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
>   A non-economist friend asks this question:
>
> Are there any official documents or declarations anywhere
> about the minimum daily food requirement in $ and c. below
> which people are regarded as "in poverty"?

Every year the House Committee on Ways and Means publishes the
famous "Green Book" (about 1500 pp) which includes updated
and historical poverty thresholds by family type and size,
along with tons of other information on incomes and the
basic entitlement/social security/anti-poverty programs.
It would be in any decent research library, especially any
that was a Federal govt depository.  The official name of
the volume escapes me, but it is something like "Programs
Under the Jurisdiction of the Committee on Ways and Means."

Patricia Ruggles (Urban Institute) has a recent book on
how poverty is measured which probably has numbers as well.
The inventor of the current method was Mollie Orshansky,
and libraries probably have some references by her as well,
though nothing with her name on it would have current numbers.

MS

=====================================================
Max B. Sawicky			maxsaw@xxxxxxxxx
Economic Policy Institute	202-775-8810 (voice)
Ste. 1200			202-775-0819 (fax)
1660 L Street, NW
Washington, D.C.  20036