Improving How Poverty Is Measured: A Recommendation To Better Reflect Households' Basic Needs

A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, & Medicine offers recommendations for updating how poverty is measured in the U.S., with a special focus on the costs of child care and health care, as well as regional differences in housing costs. Members will discuss their assessment of the current Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), accounting for basic needs and costs that were missing, and what a change from the SPM to a new Principal Poverty Measure would accomplish.