in 2014, the united states defined poverty as the state in which anyone is surviving on less than

Department of Agriculture, where she had worked in an agency called the Bureau of Home Economics and Human Nutrition. Orshansky’s idea was to define a poverty line based on the cost of a healthy diet. In 1963, Orshansky, who was working for the Social Security Administration, published an article called “Children of the Poor” in a highly useful and dry-as-dust publication called the Social Security Bulletin. In the United States, the official definition of the poverty line traces back to a single person: Mollie Orshansky. Income inequality compares the share of the total income (or wealth) in society that is received by different groups for example, comparing the share of income received by the top 10% to the share of income received by the bottom 10%. Poverty is measured by the number of people who fall below a certain level of income-called the poverty line-that defines the income needed for a basic standard of living. Drawing the Poverty LineĬomparisons of high and low incomes raise two different issues: economic inequality and poverty. government defines poverty, the balance between assisting the poor without discouraging work, and how federal antipoverty programs work. To put this in perspective, most cities have restaurants where $17 will buy you an appetizer for one. Spread over 365 days, the food budget for the entire family would be about $17 per day. After paying for rent, healthcare, clothing, and transportation, such a family might have $6,000 to spend on food. Think about a family of three-perhaps a single mother with two children-attempting to pay for the basics of life on perhaps $17,916 per year. families as below the poverty line in that year. Census Bureau, the federal government classified almost nine million U.S. In 2014, the median American family income was $57,939 (the median is the level where half of all families had more than that level and half had less). However, labor markets do create considerable income inequalities. Market forces do not take time to contemplate whether those who are earning higher incomes should pay an even higher share of taxes. Market forces do not worry about what happens to families when a major local employer goes out of business. The labor markets that determine what workers are paid do not take into account how much income a family needs for food, shelter, clothing, and health care.

In 2014, the united states defined poverty as the state in which anyone is surviving on less than