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Scott Muggy
Joye Otto
WRI 121
23 July 2014
The Definition of Poverty
Fifty years ago President Lyndon B. Johnson declared war on poverty. While he was in
office the programs President Johnson created decreased poverty from 23% to 12% (Dallek).
Fifty years later with no significant policy changes an estimated 1 in 7 Americans, are living
below the government poverty line (Sheffield). The definition of poverty is one that throughout
time has failed to accurately portray reality. Today is no different.
Poverty seems almost to be an abstract concept, making consensus on what it means to be
poor, difficult. Dictionary.com defines poverty as the state or condition of having little or no
money, goods, or means of support. Economist J. K. Galbraith who in 1958 said People are
poverty stricken when their income, even if adequate for survival, falls markedly behind that of
their community (Galbraith), in a 1964 U.S. Congress economic report: No objective
definition of poverty exists The definition varies from place to place and time to time. In
America as our standard of living rises, so does our idea of what is substandard (Congress
1964), and in 1993 Brian Nolan and Christopher T. Whelan of the Economic and Social
Research Institute (ESRI) said Poverty has to be seen in terms of the stand of living of the
society in question (Callan, Nolan and Whelan).
Because there is no one blanket poverty definition that answers the question, what is
poverty? Current economists and sociologists have taken the term poverty and have broken it
down into 2 broad subcategories; Absolute poverty and Relative poverty (Schwartzman).
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Absolute poverty, sometimes called Extreme poverty, was defined by World Summit for Social
Development in 1995 as a severe deprivation of basic human needs and social services
(DESA). Relative poverty is a measure of income inequality as socially defined. Relative poverty
is usually measured by establishing a percentage of the population with an income below the
medium income (Marx and Van Den Bosch). The United Nations Development Program
(UNDP) uses and recommends countries use Relative poverty as a measurement for poverty
(Definition of Poverty).
Here in the United States the U.S. Census Bureau publishes numbers that according to the
website are intended for use as a statistical yardstick. The threshold values used today for
measuring poverty were originally created in 1963 using the Department of Agriculture food
budgets designed for families under economic stress (the cost of a minimum diet) and data about
what portion of their income families spend on food multiplied by 3. The Census Bureau then
annually adjusts the food cost using the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U)
to reflect inflation. (Census)
When analyzing the Census reports with surveys of the poor conducted by various
government agencies the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation found that the
average poor person had sufficient funds to meet all essential needs. Todays poor have
amenities such as cars, video game systems, televisions, and even multiple computers.
(Sheffield) This creates a misperception of poverty that leads to comments like Fox News Greg
Gutfeld stating on air that he envied the poor because they dont have to pay taxes (Hunter). In
the 21
st
century market place, the poor owning a computer or even a video game system should
come as no surprise. I walked into Goodwill a couple months back and they were selling video
games and video game systems from 15 to 20 years ago for very little money and by going on
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the internet and shopping on Craigs List my college age daughter got a 40 television for $20.
The items once considered as luxury items are now common place items that are taken for
granted until you see them for sale and play the do you remember that game with your spouse.
Are there other misperceptions that The Heritage Foundations Understanding Poverty
report created? Certainly, in fact on the second page of the report Rector and Sheffield state The
mainstream media broadcast alarming stories about widespread and severe hunger in the nation
(Sheffield). A quick fact check finds that according to Neil Rendall and Steve deMause who
monitored the three major broadcast networks news programs over a 38 month time period found
that stories about the poor only constituted about 0.4% of the news total broadcast time, a total
of 57 news stories (Rendall). To put this into a per show perspective; a one hour American
television program is on average 40 minutes long, after commercials (Comercials), that means
that each hour long news program contains an average of 9.6 seconds of news related to poverty
or 1 news story every 15 weeks.
The argument could be made that during the time period that the study took place there
were no significant poverty events worthy of broadcasting. During the survey time period there
were 2 major subjects that occupied the most of the broadcast news programs time, the Michael
Jackson trial and Hurricane Katrina. For the first 6 months following Katrina 24 stories about
poverty were aired on the news that is almost half of the 57 news stories about poverty that ran
during the research time frame. What is sad is that in 2005 alone Michael Jackson had more air
time than the poor on the news (44 stories) that year (Rendall).
So now if the system the government uses to report the poverty levels were to be updated,
what would the new poverty levels be? Some like College Teacher Paul Bucheit estimate that the
new poverty level would be at least 30% and could be as high as 50% of the American
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population (Bucheit). Although these are just speculations and are easily dismissed for the lack
of hard data, we can test Bucheits estimation with the help of the United Nations and the
European Union (EU). Using the United Nations recommendation to use the Relative poverty
method (Schwartzman) and since the EU is probably the closest to our economic size right now
we will use their formula of 60% of the median household income (Marx and Van Den Bosch).
Using the 2012 Census report of the U.S. median household income of $51,324 (Census) and
multiplying by 60% we get a new economical poverty level of $30,794.40. That is higher than
the estimated Census poverty line of $23,492 for a family of 4 in 2012. The Census Bureau does
not provide numbers that would enable a percentage estimation of the population that would be
considered poor without complex formulas. Fortunately the Social Security Administration
(SSA) publishes the Distribution of Wage Earners by Level of Net Compensation, these numbers
are reported by employers for the wages they pay employees (Actuary). Using the SSA chart, the
percentage of workers in 2011 that made $30k or less was 54%. Ill say that again, 54% of the
workers that pay Social Security in the United States makes $30,000 or less. This is much worse
than what Bucheit estimated.
This estimation does not take into consideration the economical differences between the
geographical regions of the U.S., nor does the data from the Census that we are comparing to. It
also does not account for the people who do not pay into Social Security, the Census numbers
count everyone and Social Security does not. This is also a true statement to which I could not
find information that would explain why at an income level of $19k the Census reports only 15%
population is below that number and the SSA reports 40% (Census) (Actuary). However I find it
difficult to believe that the population not in the SSA data that is in the Census data make enough
money to push the poverty percentage down 25%.
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I am stunned that in researching for this paper, the difference in current defined poverty
took us from 1 in 7 living in poverty to about 3 out of 5 people living in relative poverty. 1 in 3
of us are potentially one paycheck away from homelessness (Bloodworth). Because of how
outdated the U.S. Governments metrics for reporting poverty in this country are the true picture
of poverty will never be known. Lets update the tools to define poverty and then solve the
problem not hide it behind the curtains of ignorance.

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Works Cited
Actuary, Office of the Chief. Automatic Increases. Annual. Social Security Administration.
Washington, DC, 2014. Web. 23 7 2014.
Average Hour-Long TV Show is 36% Commercials. 7 5 2009. 22 7 2014.
Bloodworth, James. 8 million people one paycheck away from homelessness. 11 4 2013. Web.
23 7 2014.
Bucheit, Paul. Overwhelming Evidence that Half of America is In or Near Poverty. 23 3 2014.
Web. 5 7 2014. <http://www.alternet.org/economy/overwhelming-evidence-half-
america-or-near-poverty>.
Callan, T., Brian Nolan and Christopher T. Whelan. "Resources, Deprivation and the
Measurement of Poverty." Journal of Social Policy 22.2 (1993): 141172. 20 7 2014.
Dallek, Robert. How Do Historians Evaluate the Administration of Lyndon Johnson? 8 7 2002.
Web. 8 7 2014. <http://hnn.us/article/439>.
Definition of Poverty. 22 7 2014. Web. 22 7 2014.
Galbraith, J. K. The Affluent Society. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958. Print. 22 7 2014.
Hunter. Fox News' Gutfeld 'envies' Americans too poor to pay income tax. 16 4 2014. Web. 6 7
2014. <http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/16/1292522/-Fox-News-Gutfeld-
envies-Americans-too-poor-to-pay-income-tax#>.
Marx, Ive and Karel Van Den Bosch. "HOW POVERTY DIFFERS FROM INEQUALITY." University of
Antwerp, Belgium, 2008. Print. 22 7 2014.
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Rendall, Neil deMause and Steve. The Poor Will Always Be With Us--Just Not on the TV News. 1
9 2007. Web. 5 7 2014. <http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/the-poor-will-always-be-
with-us-just-not-on-the-tv-news/>.
Report of the Joint Economic Committee on the January 1964 Economic Report of the President
with Minority and Additional Views. US Congress. Washington DC: US Government
Printing Office, 1964. Print. 19 7 2014.
Schwartzman, Simon. The Statistical Measurement of Poverty. Summary. United Nations.
Santiago and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1998. Print. 22 7 2014.
Sheffield, Robert Rector and Rachel. "Understanding Poverty in the United States:." Report. The
Heritage Foundation, 2011. Web. 5 7 2014.
<http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/09/understanding-poverty-in-the-
united-states-surprising-facts-about-americas-poor>.
Sutherby, Kaitlin. Danny Schechter: Putting Poverty On TV. 7 3 2014. 6 7 2014.
<http://borgenproject.org/danny-schechter-putting-poverty-tv/>.
US Census Bureau Information onPoverty. n.d. 19 7 2014.
"World Summit for Social Development, Copenhagen Declaration." Copenhagen, Denmark:
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), 1995. Print. 20 7
2014.