How people and institutions portray and try to cope with poverty depends to a considerable extent on how poverty is measured. The differences between relative poverty (having less than others) and absolute poverty (not having enough to survive) are great. However, there are a wide variety of options for measuring wealth and well-being and for establishing lines that separate the poor from the nonpoor. Economists have traditionally chosen income as the basis for measuring and defining poverty, but even that choice allows for a multitude of options. While no one measure is necessarily correct, experts argue that some are better than others.( Brady, David (2003)
In 2001 the Census Bureau reported about 33 million residents living in poverty in the United States, or about 12 percent of the total population. About 6.8 million families, or 9 percent of all U.S. families, lived in poverty in 2001. These poverty rates were similar to those of the 1970s, but were about half of the historically high rates of the early 1960s. While little seems to have changed in aggregate, or total, levels of U.S. poverty since the 1970s, the composition of the people living in poverty has changed significantly. That is, the probability of being poor has changed significantly across demographic groups, which are based on age, race, family status, and geographic location. Some groups of people are now much more likely to be poor than in the past while other groups are less likely to be poor.
The census divides the total U.S. population into three basic age groups: children (up through 17 years of age), prime-aged adults (18 years to 64 years), and the elderly (65 years of age and over). About 16 percent of children were poor in 2001, more than in any other age group. Poverty among prime-aged......
