Poverty Measures
International Resources

Mesures de pauvreté :
ressources internationales

Updated April 19, 2008
Page révisée le 19 avril 2008

[ Go to Canadian Social Research Links Home Page ]

On this page, you'll find links to American and other selected international resources on the subject of poverty measures.
For links to poverty measures in Canada, go to the Canadian Social Research Links Poverty Measures: Canadian resources page
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For links to social program statistics for Canada and other countries, go to the Canadian Social Research Links Social Statistics page
For info on asset-based approaches to social policy, see the Canadian Social Research Links Asset-Based Social Policies Links page

If you're happy and you know it...
- this takes you further down on the page you're now reading, where you'll find links to Happiness Economics, the World Map of Happiness, the Happy Planet Index and more...

The Committee on Ways and Means of the U.S. House of Representatives publishes transcripts of the hearings it holds on issues in its areas of responsibility.
For a complete list of these hearings, see
<http://waysandmeans.house.gov/hearings.asp>.

Some of the hearings in 2007 and 2008 have focused on topics relating to (U.S.) poverty and social welfare policy, as you can see in the list below.
To see the complete list of hearings and to view any transcript, click the link above.
Selected hearings:
(4-15-2008) Hearing on the Instability of Health Coverage in America Health
(4-10-2008) Hearing on Extending Unemployment Insurance Income Security and Family Support
(2-28-2008) Hearing on Medicare Advantage Health
(1-16-2008) Hearing on Social Security Benefits for Economically Vulnerable Beneficiaries Social Security
(11-14-2007) Hearing on Impact of Gaps in Health Coverage on Income Security Income Security and Family Support
(9-19-2007) Hearing on Modernizing Unemployment Insurance to Reduce Barriers for Jobless Workers
(9-6-2007) Hearing on Fair and Equitable Tax Policy for America’s Working Families.
(8-1-2007) Hearing on Measuring Poverty in America
(4-26-2007) Hearing on Proposals for Reducing Poverty
More...[link to the list of hearings]

Source:
Committee on Ways and Means
[ U.S. House of Representatives ]

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From the U.S. Census Bureau (updated links and content):

Census Bureau Poverty Page
- includes links to : * Poverty Home * Overview *What's new * Publications * Definitions * Poverty Thresholds * Poverty Data Sources * Current Poverty Data * Microdata Access * Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates * History of the Poverty Measure * Poverty Measurement Studies and Alternative Measures * Related Sites * FAQ

Poverty Measurement Studies and Alternative Measures
- includes links to the 1976 Measure of Poverty report, the 1985 Williamsburg Conference and Technical Papers 51-58, the 1995 National Academy of Sciences report and related reports and papers, and the 2005 American Enterprise Institute seminar series.

* Exploring the Use of the Views of the Public to Set
Income Poverty Thresholds and Adjust Them Over Time (PDF - 387K, 77 pages)
By Denton R. Vaughan
February 2004 (updated from June 1993)
Beginning in 1946 (more than two decades before Dutch economists began developing “subjective” poverty measures), the Gallup Poll in the U.S. repeatedly asked the following question: “What is the smallest amount of money a family of four (husband, wife, and two children) needs each week to get along in this community?” (Similar questions have been asked in Gallup Polls in Canada and Australia.) This paper by Vaughan is the most up-to-date and thorough analysis of the results of this “get-along” question. The paper uses the U.S. Gallup “get-along” responses for the period 1947-1989 plus the response to a 1989 Gallup “poverty line” question to construct a “Gallup-based” poverty line series for a four-person family for the 1947-1989 period.
* Personal Assessments of Minimum Income and Expenses:
What Do They Tell Us about ‘Minimum Living’ Thresholds and Equivalence Scales? (PDF - 1.1MB, 69 pages)
By Thesia I. Garner and Kathleen S. Short
July 2002
This and similar papers by Garner and Short are probably the most up-to-date work on “subjective” poverty measures now being done in the United States.
Poverty Thresholds (1973-2007 and selected earlier years back to 1959)

Links to Related Sites
Find other agencies or organizations which provide Poverty Measurement Research

- Poverty Measurement Working Papers
- incl. links to papers and reports organized under the following themes:
* Measuring Poverty - Background and Overview * Who are the Poor? Using Different Measures * Poverty Thresholds * Medical Care * Housing Costs * Work-related Expenses and Child Care * Taxes and Unit of Analysis * Other Approaches to Measuring Economic Well-being

History of the Poverty Measure
- links to the following papers:
* The Development of the Orshansky Thresholds and Their Subsequent History as the Official U.S. Poverty Measure, by Gordon M. Fisher (1992)
* "Changes in the Definition of Poverty", from Characteristics of the Population Below the Poverty Level: 1980
* Office of Management and Budget Statistical Policy Directive 14 (1978) - establishing the official poverty measure for federal agencies to use in their statistical work.
* The Measure of Poverty (1976) A series of technical papers about poverty measurement performed for the Poverty Studies Task Force of the Federal Interagency Committee on Education.
* Family Food Plans and Food Costs (1962)

Related links:

Economic Snapshot for April 11, 2007:
More poverty than meets the eye
by Jared Bernstein
When it comes to poverty in America, almost every analyst agrees that the official measure is terribly out-of-date and no longer provides a valid indication of economic deprivation. Thankfully, the Census Bureau has implemented the recommendations of a mid-1990s panel of social scientists devoted to correcting the shortcomings of the official measure. The most accurate of these recommended new measures1 makes several improvements: it accounts for the costs and benefits of taxes and near-cash transfers, like food stamps; it reduces the income of working families for costs associated with work; it makes adjustments for price differences throughout the country; and, it allows the poverty thresholds to reflect changes in consumption by the non-poor.
Source:
Economic Snapshots - link to the most recent snapshot
Snapshots archive - links to 400+ snapshots back to 1999
[ Economic Policy institute ]
Also from EPI:
Poverty and Family Budgets - including links to General Information on Poverty Measurement and Basic Family Budgets
Other EPI Issue Guides - incl. * living wage * minimum wage * offshoring * retirement security * social security * unemployment insurance * welfare

Source:
National Center for Children in Poverty

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Related links from the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services:

The 2007 Health and Human Services Poverty guidelines
One Version of the [U.S.] Federal Poverty Measure
January 2007

New CBO Data show income inequality continues to widen:
After-Tax-Income for Top 1 Percent Rose by $146,000 in 2004
January 23, 2007
By Arloc Sherman and Aviva Aron-Dine
The Congressional Budget Office recently released extensive data on household incomes for 2004.[1] CBO issues the most comprehensive and authoritative data available on the levels of and changes in incomes and taxes for different income groups, capturing trends at the very top of the income scale that are not shown in Census data.
Source:
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP)

Poverty Ain't What It Used to Be - U.S. (article)
by Garth Mangum, Andrew Sum, Neeta Fogg
"Even by conventional measures, the proportion of Americans living in poverty has only just begun to decline after a decade of economic expansion. But these authors argue that progress is even slower because the poverty line is much too low. IS IT only perpetuating our historical reputation as the "dismal science" that keeps economists looking for weeds and nettles among the flowering of the prospering U.S. economy? Among those entrancing blooms have been the recent declines in both the absolute numbers and the rates of poverty. Yet our urge for statistical and policy relevance motivates us to raise again the question of the way poverty has been measured in the United States over the past thirty-five years. (...) the federal government's poverty measurements have so deteriorated over time that return to a poverty standard designed to bring the relative standards of living represented by the official poverty-income thresholds into the same relationship that existed in 1964 would nearly double both the number and the percent of persons and families declared to be poor today."
NOTE: this is one of the relatively few recent proposals for a higher U.S. poverty line that is not based on family budget studies.
Source:
March 2000 Issue
Challenge: The Magazine of Economic Affairs
"Covers a wide range of views on national and international economic affairs with the intention of promoting a more rational and effective public policy."

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Comment re. Poverty Ain't What It Used to Be
(December 2004)

The authors note that consumption patterns and the relative prices of various necessities have changed significantly since the U.S. poverty line was established during the 1960's, and urge that the "outmoded" official measure be raised by two thirds--to 165 percent of its current level. By historical accident, the poverty line for a four-person family was about equal to one half of median post-tax income for such a family when it was established; the authors urge that the poverty line be restored to and kept at this benchmark, which would have raised it to 165 percent of its current level at the time they wrote. They present figures on the population below 165 percent of the current poverty line, showing how this population is distributed among various demographic groups and geographic regions. (This article is a summary of the following 149-page publication of the Sar Levitan Center for Social Policy Studies <http://www.levitan.org/>: Neal Fogg, Andrew Sum, and Garth Mangum, with Neeta Fogg and Sheila Palma, Poverty Ain't What it Used to Be: The Case for and Consequences of Redefining Poverty (Policy Issues Monograph 99-03), Sar Levitan Center for Social Policy Studies, The Johns Hopkins University, June 1999.)

[From an anonymous contributor to Canadian Social Research Links]

WORKING HARD, FALLING SHORT:
America’s Working Families and the Pursuit of Economic Security(PDF file - 3.2MB, 36 pages)
October 2004
"This report is a product of the Working Poor Families Project, a national initiative supported by the Annie E. Casey, Ford and Rockefeller foundations. This initiative, publicly launched in 2001, has involved 15 state nonprofit organizations that are committed to helping low-income adults succeed in the labor market. Each state organization prepares a report similar to this national one, assessing conditions of working families and state government efforts to assist them."

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The report presents data on "low-income working families," which it defines as working families with incomes below 200 percent of the official federal poverty thresholds. Explaining its choice of this definition, the report refers to work on family budgets done by the Economic Policy Institute, Wider Opportunities for Women, and state groups in Michigan and Texas. These budgets, which estimate the actual cost of basic needs to achieve economic self-sufficiency, generally approximate 200 percent of the poverty thresholds, although they range even higher in high-cost metropolitan areas. The report includes a recommendation that the federal government "redefine poverty more realistically and adopt a meaningful definition of self-sufficiency or low-income."
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Source:
The Working Poor Families Project
"The Working Poor Families Project was created in 2001 to assess state efforts to assist the working poor. This national initiative was started by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and is now supported by AECF and the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations."
NOTE: Click on the link above and scroll down the page that appears for links to 11 individual state reports (Arkansas - Colorado - Florida - Maine - Michigan - Texas - Wisconsin - Maryland - Illinois - Massachusetts - Washington)
Source:
Annie E. Casey Foundation
"Since 1948, the Annie E. Casey Foundation (AECF) has worked to build better futures for disadvantaged children and their families in the United States."

Family Budgets/Basic Needs Budgets (Unofficial)

September 5, 2004
[Contributed by an anonymous donor]

Since the early 1990's, a number of U.S. analysts and advocates, rejecting the official federal poverty line as a measure of income inadequacy, have been estimating the cost of minimum basic needs for working families by developing "basic needs budgets" or "family budgets."

A number of these budgets have been developed in the context of either the Living Wage movement or welfare-to-work activities. Most of them have been developed for only one state or one locality. Nineteen budget studies were reviewed in Jared Bernstein, Chauna Brocht, and Maggie Spade-Aguilar, How Much Is Enough? Basic Family Budgets for Working Families, Washington, D.C., Economic Policy Institute, 2000 (executive summary and introduction available at <http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/books_howmuch>).

Of these budgets, those developed for a one-parent/two-child family were between 152 percent and 331 percent of the corresponding poverty threshold, while budgets developed for a two-parent/two-child family were between 169 percent and 288 percent of the corresponding poverty threshold. Variations are due to both geographic cost differences and some differences in cost assumptions and coverage in individual budgets. Links to some of these budgets can be found at <http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/issueguides_poverty_budgetsbystate>.

Prominent among these family budgets is the Self-Sufficiency Standard created by Dr. Diana Pearce (now at the University of Washington); it has been referred to as the "gold standard" of family budgets. "The Self-Sufficiency Standard measures how much income is needed for a family of a given composition in a given place to adequately meet their basic needs--without public or private assistance"; it is "a basic family survival budget, with no frills--no take-out pizza, no movies...no budget for emergencies, car repair or long-term savings."

Since the mid-1990's, Dr. Pearce has partnered with Wider Opportunities for Women and state organizations and coalitions to develop Self- Sufficiency Standards for at least 34 states and two major metropolitan areas. Figures are calculated by county for 70 different family subtypes. For a page with links to Self-Sufficiency Standard reports for individual states/areas, go to http://www.sixstrategies.org/includes/productlistinclude.cfm?strProductType=resource&searchType=type&strType=self-sufficiency%20standard>.

Setting the Standard for American Working Families is a 56-page report by Wider Opportunities for Women detailing the uses and the nationwide impact of the Self-Sufficiency Standard; it can be found at <http://www.wowonline.org/docs/FINAL_FESS_report_072103.pdf>.

In 2003, Dr. Pearce authored a 70-page report, Overlooked & Undercounted: A new perspective on the struggle to make ends meet in California; the full report is at <http://www.nedlc.org/overandunder.pdf>, and the executive summary is at <http://www.nedlc.org/overlookedexecsumm.pdf>. This report shows that in 2000, 30.3 percent of California's households (excluding the aged and disabled) were below the Self-Sufficiency Standard, while only 10.6 percent of all households were below the official federal poverty thresholds.

In 2001, the Economic Policy Institute published a book in which the authors developed basic family budgets for 1999 for six different family types (one- and two-parent families with one, two, and three children) for every metropolitan area and for the "rural" [actually nonmetropolitan] balance of each state. (The book was Heather Boushey, Chauna Brocht, Bethney Gundersen, and Jared Bernstein, Hardships in America: The Real Story of Working Families, Washington, D.C., Economic Policy Institute, 2001. The executive summary and introduction are available at <http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/books_hardships>.) "The budgets do not include the cost of restaurant meals, vacations, movies, or savings for education or retirement." For two-parent two-child families, the national median for the budgets was $33,511, almost twice the 1999 official poverty threshold of $16,895 for a family of this type. Looking at Current Population Survey data for 1997-1999 for families of the above six family types with positive earnings, the book found that 28.9 percent of them were below their family budget levels, while only 10.1 percent of them were below the official poverty thresholds.

Sources:
Economic Policy Institute
Six Strategies for Family Economic Security
--- part of Wider Opportunities for Women
National Economic Development and Law Center

Measuring Poverty in America: Science or Politics?
HTML Intro ("Research")
Complete report (PDF file - 233K, 26 pages)
April 2002
To date, this appears to be the only major conservative paper presenting arguments against the use of basic needs budgets as measures of income inadequacy in the U.S.
Source:
Employment Policies Institute

But hold on for a minute...

Here's an excerpt from what SourceWatch* has to say about the Employment Policies Institute:
[ *SourceWatch "is a collaborative project to produce a directory of public relations firms, think tanks, industry-funded organizations and industry-friendly experts that work to influence public opinion and public policy on behalf of corporations, governments and special interests. SourceWatch is sponsored by the Center for Media and Democracy." ]

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Employment_Policies_Institute

"The Employment Policies Institute is one of several front groups created by Berman & Co., a Washington, DC public affairs firm owned by Rick Berman, who lobbies for the restaurant, hotel, alcoholic beverage and tobacco industries [bolding added]. EPI, registered as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization, has been widely quoted in news stories regarding minimum wage issues, and although a few of those stories have correctly described it as a "think tank financed by business," most stories fail to provide any identification that would enable readers to identify the vested interests behind its pronouncements. Instead, it is usually described exactly the way it describes itself, as a "non-profit research organization dedicated to studying public policy issues surrounding employment growth" that "focuses on issues that affect entry-level employment." In reality, EPI's mission is to keep the minimum wage low so Berman's clients can continue to pay their workers as little as possible [more bolding added]. EPI also owns the internet domain names to MinimumWage.com and LivingWage.com, a website that attempts to portray the idea of a living wage for workers as some kind of insidious conspiracy. "Living wage activists want nothing less than a national living wage," it warns (as though there is something wrong with paying employees enough that they can afford to eat and pay rent)."

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Methodology for Determining Whether an Increase in a State or Territory's Child Poverty Rate Is the Result of the TANF Program; Final Rule
June 23, 2000
"This final rule establishes the methodology the Administration for Children and Families will use to determine the child poverty rate in each State and Territory. If any jurisdiction experiences an increase in its child poverty rate of five percent or more as a result of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, the State or Territory must submit and implement a corrective action plan [highlighting added]. This requirement is a part of the TANF program, the welfare reform block grant enacted in 1996. This rule is effective August 22, 2000."
Source:
Administration for Children and Families
[U.S Dept. of Health and Human Services

Measuring Poverty: A New Approach (U.S.)
1995 - 536 pages
Panel on Poverty and Family Assistance: Concepts, Information Needs, and Measurement Methods
Committee on National Statistics, National Research Council
Read it Online - free
Source:
National Academy Press (NAP) - ("More than 3,000 books online free")

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The Mismeasure of Poverty
A more accurate index is long overdue
August-September 2006
By Nicholas Eberstadt
"(...) Central as the “poverty rate” has become to antipoverty policy — or, more precisely, especially because of its central role in such policies — the official poverty rate should likewise be discarded in favor of a more accurate index, or set of indices, for describing material deprivation in modern America. The task of devising a better statistical lodestar for our nation’s antipoverty efforts is by now far overdue. Properly pursued, it is an initiative that would rightly tax both our formidable government statistical apparatus and our finest specialists in the relevant disciplines. But such exertions would also stand to benefit the common weal in as yet incalculable ways."

Source:
Policy Review
August & September 2006

Past issues of Policy Review - back to 1995
Browse all Policy Review issues by Topic
- topics include:
* Economics & Finance * Education * Energy & Environment * Global Cooperation & Relations * History & Philosophy * Law * National Security & Defense * Politics, International * Politics, U.S. * Values & Social Policy ( including Welfare Reform )

Source:
Hoover Institution
The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University, is a public policy research center devoted to advanced study of politics, economics, and political economy—both domestic and foreign—as well as international affairs.

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Economic Policy Institute (EPI)
e"EPI works to strengthen democracy by providing people with the tools to participate in the public discussion on the economy, believing that such participation will result in economic policies that better reflect the public interest. (...) EPI was established in 1986 to broaden the discussion about economic policy to include the interests of low- and middle-income workers. Today, with global competition expanding, wage inequality rising, and the methods and nature of work changing in fundamental ways, it is as crucial as ever that people who work for a living have a voice in the economic debate."

EPI issue guides:
- living wage - minimum wage - offshoring - poverty and family budgets - retirement security - social security - unemployment insurance - welfare

Minimum Wage - 40+ links to publications, tables, charts and other online resources
Living Wage - 30+ links
Poverty and Basic Family Budgets - 30+ links

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National Center for Children in Poverty (Columbia University, New York)
"The National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and policy organization at Columbia University. Our mission is to identify and promote strategies that prevent child poverty in the United States and that improve the lives of low-income children and families.

Low-Income Children in the United States (2004)
May 2004
"37% of America's children - more than 26 million - live in low-income families. After a decade of decline, the rate of children living in low-income families is rising again. Our latest fact sheet is updated from 2003 and includes trends and new statistics."
PDF version (77K, 2 pages)
Source:
Economic Security
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Poverty Data
- links to 75+ studies and reports about poverty
Source:
Coalition on Human Needs

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Poverty Related Links
- links to ~300 sites providing information about poverty in America
Source:
Institute for Research on Poverty
(University of Wisconsin)

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Child, Family, & Community Indicators Book - U.S.
[Dated August 2002, posted to the Child Trends website Dec. 12, 2003]
"The California Children & Families Commission contracted for evaluation activities to support their outcome-based accountability system (called results-based accountability or RBA) to track progress in the areas of maternal and child health, child development, family functioning, and systems change. Child Trends helped produce the 550-page Child, Family, & Community Indicators Book to inform decisions about outcomes, performance measures, and other factors to include in the statewide evaluation."
Source:
Child Trends

Complete book online:
Child, Family, & Community Indicators Book (PDF file - 3.7MB, 550 pages)

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Institute for Social Research (ISR) - University of Michigan
...the nation's longest-standing laboratory for interdisciplinary research in the social sciences.
Enormous site! From this page, check out the links to ISR's four centers: Survey Research Center - Research Center for Group Dynamics - Center for Political Studies - Population Studies Center
* See the Index of ISR Projects for a complete list of projects from all four centers - includes links to income dynamics, health dynamics, aging, public opinion research, demographics, and more...

The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), located within the Institute for Social Research, is a membership-based, not-for-profit organization serving member colleges and universities in the United States and abroad. ICPSR provides:
- Access to the world's largest archive of computerized social science data.
- Training facilities for the study of quantitative social analysis techniques.
- Resources for social scientists using advanced computer technologies.

Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID)
Institute for Social Research
The PSID is an ongoing longitudinal survey (since 1968) of 8,700 core households designed to illuminate the economic behavior of individuals in relation to their families as a whole. The data are collected annually, and the data files contain the full span of information collected over the course of the study. PSID data can be used for cross-sectional, longitudinal, and intergenerational analysis and for studying both individuals and families.
Child Development Supplement
In 1997, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) supplemented its core data collection with data on parents and their 0- to 12-year-old children, the Child Development Supplement. The objective of this study is to provide researchers with a comprehensive, nationally representative, and longitudinal data base of [over 3,500] children and their families with which to study the dynamic process of early human capital formation.

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Wage Inequality, Earnings Inequality and Poverty
in the U.S. Over the Last Quarter of the Twentieth Century
Peter Gottschalk (Boston College), Sheldon Danziger (University of Michigan)
This paper tracks distributional changes over the last quarter of the twentieth century. We focus on three conceptually distinct distributions: the distribution of wages, the distribution of annual earnings and the distribution of total family income adjusted for family size. We show that all three distributions became less equal during the last half of the 1970's and the 1980's. This was, however, not the case during the 1990's. Wage inequality stabilized, earnings inequality declined and family income inequality actually continued to rise. We decompose changes in family income inequality over the last quarter century and show that roughly half of the increase is accounted for by changes in the distribution of earnings. This suggests that further research on family income inequality should pay as much attention to changes in the distribution of other income sources as to factors affecting the labor market.
Complete report (PDF file - 2.5MB, 61 pages)
May 2003
Source:
eScholarship@BC initiative of the Boston College Libraries

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The University of Texas Inequality Project is a small research group concerned with measuring and explaining movements of inequality in wages and earnings and patterns of industrial changes around the world. Our work so far has emphasized two techniques: the use of Theil's T statistic to compute inequality indexes from industrial data, and a combination of cluster analysis on rates of wage change and discriminant analysis to isolate the principal time patterns in changing wage structures.

Happiness Economics : We Love to See You Smile - April 10, 2007
American surveys over the past few decades seem to show that a personal sense of happpiness doesn't necessarily go along with a high Gross National Product. According to the author, many economists feel that it makes more sense to shift priorities to boosting other (non-GNP) forms of well-being, like happiness itself. Indeed, why not measure Gross National Happiness (GNH) in place of GNP?
The Economics of Happiness (PDF file - 104K, 13 pages)
2005
- from the Brookings Institution
A Plateau of Happiness
("A country's wealth may not always indicate the happiness of its people")
Source:
New York Times
The Second International Conference on Gross National Happiness
June 20 to June 24, 2005
Gross National Happiness:
A New Measure of Well-Being From a Happy Little Kingdom
October 4, 2005
"What is happiness? In the United States and in many other industrialized countries, it is often equated with money. Economists measure consumer confidence on the assumption that the resulting figure says something about progress and public welfare. The gross domestic product, or G.D.P., is routinely used as shorthand for the well-being of a nation. But the small Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan has been trying out a different idea. In 1972, concerned about the problems afflicting other developing countries that focused only on economic growth, Bhutan's newly crowned leader, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, decided to make his nation's priority not its G.D.P. but its G.N.H., or gross national happiness..."
Discussion Papers on Gross National Happiness
1999
- from the Center for Bhutanese Studies
World Values Survey
The World Values Survey is organised as a network of social scientists coordinated by a central body, the World Values Survey Association. (...) The World Values Survey Association is founded in order to help social scientists and policy makers better understand worldviews and changes that are taking place in the beliefs, values and motivations of people throughout the world.
World Values Survey - from Wikipedia
The Canadian Index of Wellbeing:
Measuring What Matters
The CIW is being developed as a tool to account honestly and accurately for changes in our human, social, economic and natural wealth through a new index that can best capture the full range of factors that determine wellbeing in Canada – health prevention initiatives, clear air and water, genuine progress by our Aboriginal peoples, early childhood education, and other determinants of a healthy nation.
Source:
The Atkinson Foundation
Genuine Progress Index for Atlantic Canada
Since the Second World War, economic growth statistics based on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) have been widely used as a proxy for societal wellbeing and prosperity. This was not the intention of those who created the GDP. (...) GDP-based measures were never meant to be used as a measure of progress, as they are today. In fact, activities that degrade our quality of life, like crime, pollution, and addictive gambling, all make the economy grow. The more fish we sell and the more trees we cut down, the more the economy grows. Working longer hours makes the economy grow. And the economy can grow even if inequality and poverty increase.
Personal Security Index 2003:
A reflection of how Canadians feel five years later
- includes: * Economic Security * Health Security * Physical Safety * Regional Differences
Source:
Canadian Council on Social Development
The Happy Planet Index attempts to calculate life satisfaction and expectancy in relation to environmental impact. By this index, Vanuatu is #1, Columbia is #2, and Bhutan is #13, leaving the United States, at #150, in the dust.
Source:
New Economics Foundation (U.K.)
Guidelines for National Indicators of Subjective Well-Being and Ill-Being (PDF file - 25K, 7 pages)
November 2005
- promoted by leading happiness researcher Ed Diener and a group of 50 prominent psychologists, sociologists, and economists.
World Database of Happiness
- covers the following themes:
* Consumption * Cultural climate * Crime * Demography * Education * Freedom * Geography * Happiness * Health * Inequality * Institutional quality * Law and order * Lifestyle * Modernity * Personality * Politics * Risks * Social climate * Values * War * Wealth
Source:
Erasmus University (Rotterdam)

United Kingdom

Poverty Reduction Strategies in the United Kingdom and Ireland
By Chantal Collin (Political and Social Affairs Division)
2 November 2007
HTML version
PDF version (98 Kb, 15 pages)
Table of Contents:
* Introduction
The United Kingdom’s Strategy to Reduce Poverty and Social Exclusion
* A. A Multi-pronged Approach
* B. Key Objectives and Measures
* C. Measuring Success
* D. Key Challenges
* E. What’s Next? Reaching Out
Ireland’s National Anti-Poverty Strategy
* A. Multi-dimensional Approach
* B. Key Targets
* C. Measuring Success
* D. What’s Next? National Action Plan for Social Inclusion
* Summary
Source:
Parliamentary Research Library
(Government of Canada)

From the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (U.K.):

Centenary report throws new searchlight on Britain’s poor families and neighbourhoods
Press Release
December 13, 2004
"Challenging new indicators that reveal the concentrations of child poverty, poor housing, school underachievement and crime in Britain’s most disadvantaged neighbourhoods should be used by government to intensify the struggle against deprivation and social exclusion during the next 20 years, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. A report published to mark the Foundation’s 100th anniversary today argues that the new measurements should inform a comprehensive strategy for helping the poorest places as well as the poorest people – and for making sure that the life chances of children, young people and adults no longer depend so heavily on the places where they are born and live."

One Hundred Years of Poverty and Policy (PDF file - 874K,188 pages) - U.K.
November 2004

A decade of tackling poverty, but Britain's far from a fair society
Press Release
August 2, 2004
"Ten years after its groundbreaking Commission on Social Justice, set up at the request of the late John Smith, the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr) is today (Mon 2) publishing an audit of social injustice. It forms the first part of ippr's work on Rethinking Social Justice, a project which assesses how Britain has changed since the 1994 Commission and sets out new policy directions for the decade ahead."

An Audit of Injustice in the UK (PDF file - 1.16MB, 68 pages)
August 2004
Will Paxton and Mike Dixon
"The interim report for ippr's 2004 social justice project presents facts and figures on the UK and its population. What has improved in the past decade and what has not? The paper is divided into five sections: 'poverty', 'shared prosperity', 'social mobility and life chances', 'equal citizenship' and 'quality of life'. It finds that much has improved in the UK over the past decade, but to ensure a legacy of a more just Britain, we can't hide from areas where we have made less progress."

Project Outline (PDF file - 152K, 11 pages)
January 2004
This paper outlines the scope and aim of ippr's Social Justice project. It is meant merely as the basis for discussion. Some of the issues raised may not be examined in detail in the final publication and other policy challenges may be added as the project develops."

Source:
Institute for Public Policy Research
"ippr is the UK's leading progressive think tank. Through our well-researched and clearly argued policy analysis, reports and publications, our strong networks in government, academia and the corporate and voluntary sectors and our high media profile, we play a vital role in maintaining the momentum of progressive thought."

Family Budget Unit
"The Family Budget Unit, headquartered at the University of York in England, is the group that is responsible for the renaissance of budgets ("budget standards," as the British call them) as a major tool in poverty research and living standards research in Britain since the early 1990s. They published Budget Standards for the United Kingdom (edited by Jonathan Bradshaw) in 1993, and budgets for Low Cost but Acceptable (LCA) incomes for families with young children and aged households (edited by Hermione Parker) in 1998 and 2000. Their main web page includes a brief description of the two living standards--Modest but Adequate, and Low Cost but Acceptable--that they use."

Publications - full-text downloadable (PDF) files of the nine most recent publications, including updates of their LCA budgets for families with children and for the aged.

U.K. Department for Work and Pensions
"The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is responsible for the Government's welfare reform agenda. Its aim is to promote opportunity and independence for all. It delivers support and advice through a modern network of services to people of working age, employers, pensioners, families and children and disabled people"

Poverty: Measures and Targets (PDF file - 355K, 81 pages) - United Kingdom
March 4, 2004
Research Paper 04/23
"There are many difficulties inherent in defining and measuring poverty. This paper looks at these, and the Government’s approach to monitoring poverty, together with a range of ‘low income’ poverty statistics. The Government has set itself a target of reducing child poverty by a quarter by 2004. This paper follows progress towards the target, and considers whether it is likely to be met. This target is a first step towards the ‘eradication’ of child poverty by 2020. A consultation process has recently led to a new measurement of child poverty that will be used to monitor progress towards future targets."
- Part I discusses poverty, social exclusion and some alternative approaches to poverty measurement
- Part II explains Households Below Average Income (HBAI) methodology and terms
- Part III presents selected HBAI statistics (including trends over time)
- Part IV presents international comparisons of low income poverty [including Canada], based on EU and OECD sources.
- Part V looks at the Government's progress in reaching its 2004/05 child poverty target
- Part VI summarises the consultation exercise started in April 2002 [ by the Department for Work and Pensions ] on a new child poverty measure to be used to judge whether the Government’s future targets for halving child poverty by 2010, and eradicating it by 2020, are met.
Source:
The United Kingdom Parliament

Related Links

Measuring child poverty consultation, Final report (PDF file - 166K, 27 pages) - United Kingdom
December 2003
Related Documents (background info)

Opportunity for All - series of annual reports (starting in 1999) with detailed information about the U.K. Government strategy against poverty and social exclusion
The first report set out "evidence-based strategy for tackling poverty and social exclusion. The report also established indicators of progress to audit the effectiveness of this strategy."

Opportunity for All: Fifth Annual Report 2003

Work and Pensions - Written Evidence
Written Evidence ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 14 January 2004.
- incl. links to over 35 submissions providing comprehensive, detailed information on child poverty and poverty measurement in the United kingdom from over 35 individuals and organizations. Presenters include the Association of London Government, the Citizen's Income Trust, Save the Children, the End Child Poverty Campaign, the Northern Ireland Anti Poverty Network, CARE, the Disability Alliance, the Institute of Fiscal Studies, the Child Poverty Action Group, the Department for Work and Pensions, Daycare Trust and many more.
Recommended reading!

Preliminary conclusions : Measuring child poverty consultation (PDF file - 260K, 58 pages) --- United Kingdom
May 2003
"This document sets out preliminary conclusions from Measuring child poverty: A consultation document which we published in April 2002, and outlines our recommendations and next steps."

Government publishes initial response to consultation on measuring child poverty
May 14, 2003
Press Release

Government to consult on measuring child poverty
Press Release
April 18, 2002
"The Government is to seek the views of poverty experts on how to build on current indicators to measure child poverty. The Department for Work and Pensions is publishing the "Measuring Child Poverty" consultation paper today to ensure the Government is using the best possible measure to track long-term progress in tackling child poverty. The consultation is in response to calls from academics and other poverty experts to look at different ways of measuring poverty including those used in other countries."
[The consultation period ended 10 July 2002.]

Measuring child poverty: a consultation document (PDF file - 146K, 36 pages)
April 2002
"In March 1999, the Prime Minister announced the Government’s commitment to eradicate child poverty within a generation. As we move towards this goal we want to be sure that we are measuring poverty in a way that helps to target effective policies and enables the Government to be held to account for progress."

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Social Indicators (U.K.) - PDF file - 769K, 71 pages
November 2001
"The House of Commons Library Research Papers are published for the benefit of Parliament members, but this one should be of interest to both researchers and general readers wanting to learn more about contemporary British social issues. Social Indicators is the first paper in a new series that will be published three times a year. The 71-page paper includes a wide range of topic pages that present social statistics on a variety of issues, from the prison population to defense expenses to agricultural outputs. Each Social Indicator paper will also offer feature articles that give a closer look at specific subjects (in this instance,, election turnout and adult literacy) and an article on statistical sources for a particular issue (in this paper, social security statistics). The last few pages are devoted to a list of important, recent governmental statistical publications
Reviewed by:
The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2001

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Does it matter that we don't agree on the definition of poverty? A comparison of four approaches (PDF file - 133K, 41 pages) - U.K.
Working Paper No. 107
May 2003
"While there is worldwide agreement on poverty reduction as an overriding goal of development policy, there is little agreement on the definition of poverty. The paper reviews four approaches to the definition and measurement of poverty - the monetary, capability, social exclusion and participatory approaches. It points out the theoretical underpinnings of the various measures, and problems of operationalising them. It argues that each is a construction of reality, involving numerous judgements, which are often not transparent."
Working Paper Series
Source:
Development Studies at Oxford

Miscellaneous International Poverty Links

Two days, two reports, two very different worlds
June 29, 2007
The World Wealth Report 2007 released on Wednesday by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini reports that the very rich (so-called high net worth individuals – HNWI) are getting even richer. And the forecast is the extremely wealthy are going to get even richer due to their dominance of global capital markets, especially commercial real estate and real estate investment trusts. Meanwhile, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released a detailed research report on Thursday called Rising Profit Shares, Falling Wage Shares which shows that real hourly wages for workers (the people that do things, rather than own things) “have been stagnant for 30 years running”.The two studies make fascinating reading, when set side-by-side...
Source:
The Wellesley Institute Blog
[ The Wellesley Institute ]

The two reports:

Canadian workers’ paycheques in 30-year holding pattern : Study
Press Release
June 28, 2007
OTTAWA – Canadians are working harder and smarter, contributing to a growing economy, but their paycheques have been stagnant for the past 30 years, says a new study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Complete study:

Rising Profit Shares, Falling Wage Shares - (PDF File, 301K, 16 pages)

Poverty MeasuresInternational Resources

Mesures de pauvreté : ressources internationales

Poverty Measures
International Resources

Mesures de pauvreté :
ressources internationales