Editor’s note. If you cannot fight poverty, redefine it. That seems to be exactly what the Obama Administration is trying to accomplish.
This article originally appeared at NPR.org, with a different title.
The federal government has officially measured poverty for 50 years by looking at an individual’s or family’s cash income strictly.
But it’s been known for years that measuring poverty that way has its limitations. For instance, it doesn’t capture the impact of taxes on the poor who frequently don’t pay income taxes but pay disproportionately more of their incomes on employment and sales taxes.
So the Census Bureau is moving to expand the way it measures poverty. Granted, it’s not exactly moving at a breakneck pace; it’s taken 15 years to get to this point. But this is the government we’re talking about, remember.
On NPR’s Talk of The Nation Tuesday, Rebecca Blank…(read more)
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