Bloomberg: Federal Poverty Measurement System Is Outdated

NEW YORK, July 13 -- Calling the current federal poverty measure broken and outdated, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I) on Sunday unveiled a new method that he and his aides said gives a more accurate picture of the poor, and that he hopes eventually will become the new national standard.

"If we are serious about fighting poverty, we also have to start getting serious about accurately measuring poverty," Bloomberg said in remarks prepared for delivery to the convention of the NAACP in Cincinnati. Bad weather prevented his flight to Ohio, and one of Bloomberg's deputy mayors made the speech in his place.

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The current federal measures show New York City with a poverty rate of 18.9 percent. But the new measure shows that the rate is 23 percent. And the new measure shows wide differences within that spectrum. There are fewer people in extreme poverty, reflecting the impact of anti-poverty assistance programs. But under the new measure, the number of elderly poor nearly doubles, from 18 percent to 32 percent, mostly because of health-care costs.

(B)loomberg's aides said that while food accounted for a third of household spending in the 1960s, food now accounts for only an eighth of spending, with housing and transportation taking a larger slice of income. The new measurement, put together by New York's Center for Economic Opportunity, takes into account a household's spending on food, clothing, shelter, transportation, utilities and out-of-pocket medical expenses.

Washington Post