California has long had one of the nation's higher poverty
rates, as calculated by the federal government for decades on a
formula tied to food prices. But it may actually be the highest
in the nation under one proposed new way of calculating it. The
National Academy of Sciences has recommended a new methodology
for calculating poverty in the 1990s, using costs of housing and
other factors in addition to food. It has gained impetus because
President Barack Obama, as a White House candidate, advocated a
change in formula. A Washington-based advocacy group called the
Center for Law and Social Policy has applied the proposed NAS
formula to the states and then added another factor:
differential housing costs. The result is that California's
poverty rate, 34th highest under the current formula, drops to
32nd under the NAS methodology but soars to 50th when housing
costs are included in the calculation. "This report provides a
hint of how poverty rates might change if a more comprehensive
poverty measure was implem