In response to longstanding criticism of how the poverty level is calculated, the Census has produced a new, unofficial supplemental poverty measure (PDF). The new measure raises the poverty threshold, yet finds more Americans living in poverty: Under the official poverty threshold, 46.2 million people are poor, while under the supplemental measure, the number is 49.1 million.
The Census Bureau's alternative measure includes many more factors in calculating poverty. The official measure is a set dollar amount for a given family size, and doesn't take into account regional variations in cost of living, government programs to help the poor, medical expenses and more—things that may make it easier or harder to make ends meet on the $22,113 that was the 2010 official poverty threshold.
These changes have different effects for different demographic groups:
The proportion that are children, those in female householder families,
Blacks, native born, renters, and people with only public insurance is smaller using the SPM, as is the proportion of those living outside metropolitan areas and those
living in the Midwest and the South compared to the official measure.
By contrast, under the supplemental poverty measure, people older than 18, whites, Asians, homeowners with mortgages, and those living in the Northeast and West, among others, are more likely to be counted as poor. The new measure shows the extent to which programs like SCHIP help keep children from living in true poverty, and reveals many of the gaping holes in the safety net through which others are falling.