(Phys.org) -- The U.S. Census Bureau should reconsider income-
based poverty measures in favor of a consumption-based method,
according to a new study that strives to more accurately
identify the neediest Americans. The report found that the
official poverty rate and the Census Bureaus new Supplemental
Poverty Measureboth of which are income-baseddo not gauge the
extent of poverty as well as a method based on real purchasing
ability. Bruce D. Meyer, the McCormick Foundation Professor at
the University of Chicagos Harris School of Public Policy, co-
authored the study with James X. Sullivan of the University of
Notre Dame. Correctly calculating deprivation helps identify the
most disadvantaged individuals and track changes over time.
Meyer and Sullivan were surprised to find remarkably little
research on the accuracy of the current poverty indicators.
Given the measures importance, the authors decided to
investigate how well the different poverty measures work by
looking at 25 different characteristics of indivi