The Sensitivity of the Incidence of Poverty to Different Measures of Income: School-Aged Children and Families. The Measure of Poverty, Technical Paper XVII

• Main Author: Coe, Richard D
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare 10.09.1976
• Subjects: Children; Definitions; Demography; Family (Sociological Unit); Family Characteristics; Income; Low Income; Low Income Groups; Measurement Instruments; Measurement Objectives; Measurement Techniques; Poverty

This study is a two-part analysis aimed at determining what differences occur in the incidence of poverty when different definitions of income are employed and when the time frame of analysis is changed. The first part of the analysis concentrates on school-aged children, while the second part studies families. The study is based on data from the Survey Research Center's Panel Study of Income Dynamics, for the years 1968-1972. For the analyses of school-aged children, all children in the panel between the ages of 5 and 18 in the spring of 1972 were counted, resulting in a sample of 5,834 children. For the family analysis those families in 1972 which included a male head from 1968, a female head from 1968, or the wife of a male head in 1968 were counted, resulting in a sample size of 4,010 families. In general, adjustments to annual family money income to account for certain costs of receiving income, and for certain non-money components of income, result in little change in the rank ordering in economic status of familes and children. The results also show that the incidence of poverty is higher for children than for families, by all measures. Although adjustments to annual money income can change a family's economic position, especially in moving it out of the poverty classification, the time period covered appears to be a more influential factor. A crude assessment of the effects of changing the measure of poverty on the relative number counted as poor in different sub-national areas was attempted. The results are inconclusive. Various policy implications stemming from the results of this study are given. (Author/AM)