Redefining Poverty

"For the federal government, the concept of poverty is simple. If a typical family of four earns less than $21,100 a year, they're poor. If a single working woman makes less than $10,787, she's in poverty.

It doesn't matter whether these people live in Omaha, Neb., where the average apartment rents for $600 a month, or in New York City, where a similar apartment costs $1,600 a month. That's the way it's been since the federal government decided how to measure poverty in the mid-1960s.

Now, a steadily growing number of experts and policymakers argue that the poverty line should look like a wave, fluctuating with geography. That's the way New York officials see it, too. Last month, they unveiled a first-of-its-kind poverty measure that includes the city's actual costs of living.

'It really changes the picture of what the current face of poverty is,' says Linda Gibbs, New York's deputy mayor for health and human services."