POVERTY WHAT DOES IT REALLY MEAN: Poverty Thresholds and Poverty Guidelines

March 19, 2012

Since my blog is about living with a disability and surviving poverty, I decided to find out what poverty really means and who decides the income guidelines for the various Federal and State programs for low income families. Anyone who receives energy assistance, food stamps (SNAP), lives in HUD or Section 8 housing or gets Medicaid are getting assistance for families/individuals who live in poverty. I qualified for some programs and not others.

There are a lot of regulations with these benefits. To add to the confusion, these regulations are overseen by primarily two agencies. Believe it or not, one of these is the U.S. Census Bureau. The second one is the Federal Health and Human Services. Every fall the Census Bureau issues a report on poverty in the U.S. This information is used for the "Poverty Threshold" which provides the statistics on the number of people who are poor. In addition, this statistical information is disturbed by age, race and family type. A lot of people view poverty as a statistic. The Federal Poverty threshold for 2012 is $11,170 per year for one person, $23,050 for a family of four etc. Try these links for more information http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/12poverty.shtml# guidelines or http://www.famliesusa.org

The official definition of poverty uses money income before taxes. It does not include capital gains, noncash benefits like public housing, Medicaid or food stamps.

It is the Federal Department of Health and Human Services that issues the Poverty Guidelines. They are issued each year. These Guidelines are a simplification of the poverty threshold and are used to determine financial eligibility for the above Federal programs. Poverty thresholds are a measure of need or the average dollar amount it takes to provide a family with basic needs of food, shelter and clothing. Even though it is adjusted annually, there are too many things that are not taken into consideration. These same thresholds are used throughout the United States as a statistical yardstick. They are not considered a complete description of what families need to live on.

Poverty is more than a statistic or income guidelines, which has little to do with reality. It is what happens when you lose a job, lose a primary breadwinner, lose a house to foreclosure, or get critically ill without health insurance.

I see and experience poverty as a substitute teacher. I don't work every day. However, I could work more than the 4 1/2 days per month if they were available. I work often enough to see students who are experiencing poverty. They qualify for free lunches and breakfasts. Often, you can tell by the condition and type of the clothes and shoes they wear. This may include clothes that are a dingy gray to dirty or threadbare. Students may wear clothes that are the wrong size and don't fit properly. Poverty might show up as a physical factor. However, poverty is often complicated by drug and alcohol abuse or domestic violence.

I see poverty in the food markets and the shopping carts. They are filled with inexpensive highly processed, high carbohydrates, instant food boxes. There are cases of soda and loaves of white squishy bread which contains questionable if any food nutrients. Following along, are overweight and obese children toting boxes of sugar saturated cereal.

Our eating habits have deteriorated along with our waistlines. The size and number of obese shoppers with obese children seem to go up with the increase in the cost of food. There is something wrong with the economy when fresh fruits and vegetables are more expensive than processed boxed foods or McDonald's big Macs for that matter.

I prefer to purchase as many organic foods as possible, but the cost of is becoming more and more prohibitive.