Web Links

Marginal URLs:

• p. 786: Go to http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income.html to view the U.S. Census Bureau's most recent data on the U.S. income distribution. Click on the most recent year next to "Money Income in the United States."
• p. 791: For a discussion of how the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development seeks to measure investments in human capital, go to http://www1.oecd.org/publications/observer/212/Article8_eng.htm.
• p. 796: Go to http://www4.worldbank.org/sprojects/ to learn about the World Bank's programs intended to combat global poverty.

• For a summary of the evidence on U.S. income mobility between 1969 and 1994, go to http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/BG1418.cfm.
• Read a summary of some of the recent evidence indicating that there may be less U.S. income mobility at http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/may2005/mobi-m25.shtml.

Measuring Poverty

Many economists believe that there are problems with the current official measure of poverty. In this application, you will learn about some of these problems and will be able to examine an alternative poverty measure that one group of economists has proposed.

Title: Joint Center for Poverty Research (JCPR)

Navigation: Go to http://www.jcpr.org/ to visit the JCPR's home page. Click on Publications. Select the complete listing of policy briefs. Click on the Policy Brief titled "Measuring Poverty—A New Approach" (Vol. 1; No. 6).

Application: Read the article; then answer the following questions.

1. How is the current official poverty income level calculated? What is the main problem with this way of calculating the threshold income for classifying impoverished households?

2. What is the alternative conceptual measure of poverty that the authors propose? How does it differ from the current measure?