Affiliations: [a] Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality, Stanford, CA, USA | [b] University of Michigan, Michigan, MI, USA
Correspondence:
[*]
Corresponding author: Sara Kimberlin, Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality, Building 370, 450 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. Tel.: +1 650 724 6912; Fax: +1 650 736 9883; E-mail:skimber@stanford.edu
Abstract: The Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) was recently introduced by the U.S.
Census Bureau as an alternative measure of poverty that addresses many
shortcomings of the official poverty measure (OPM) to better reflect the
resources households have available to meet their basic needs. The Census
SPM is available only in the Current Population Survey (CPS). This paper
describes a method for constructing SPM poverty estimates in the Panel Study
of Income Dynamics (PSID), for the biennial years 1998 through 2010. A
public-use dataset of individual-level SPM status produced in this analysis
will be available for download on the PSID website. Annual SPM poverty
estimates from the PSID are presented for the years 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004,
2006, 2008, and 2010 and compared to SPM estimates for the same years
derived from CPS data by the Census Bureau and independent researchers. We
find that SPM poverty rates in the PSID are somewhat lower than those found
in the CPS, though trends over time and impact of specific SPM components
are similar across the two datasets.
Keywords: Poverty measurement, supplemental Poverty Measure, Panel Study of Income Dynamics, social welfare policies
