A Clearer View of Poverty: How the Supplemental Poverty Measure Changes Our Perceptions of Who Is Living in Poverty

In response to concerns about the adequacy of the official federal poverty measure, a new Supplemental Poverty Measure was recently developed to more accurately assess poverty. This fact sheet presents a rather different picture of poverty in the United States for the various demographic groups based on the Supplemental Poverty Measure and compares this new picture to the understanding of poverty based on the official measure, using data for the 2010 calendar year.