While much has been written on historical trends in poverty and the role of government in alleviating poverty, this research has almost exclusively been based on the official measure of poverty, which is widely considered inadequate. In particular, the official measure fails to adjust appropriately for the needs of different types of households and understates the role of government policies by failing to take into account several important types of government benefits (such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program/Food Stamps and tax credits) which are not counted in cash income. To remedy these inadequacies, the Census Bureau released a new supplemental poverty measure (SPM) covering 2009-2012.

In previous research, we extended the series created by Census using an SPM-like poverty measure to re-examine historical trends in poverty and the role of government anti-poverty policies historically for the period 1967-2012. Using a new historical measure of poverty, we find that deep poverty rates have been fairly consistent over the past 50 years, both overall and for children. However, these overall trends obscure changes in the demographics of families and individuals in deep poverty. This paper will take an in-depth look at the changing face of deep poverty over the past 50 years and will incorporate analyses of family structure and employment status to provide counterfactual analyses of the role of government policies in protecting certain demographic groups from falling into deep poverty. Using a Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition to examine the role of family structure, employment patterns and governmental taxes and transfers on deep poverty rates will help us to explore the effectiveness of the safety net in protecting vulnerable populations from deep poverty and to see how policies have adapted to changing risk factors over time. This analysis, which is primarily descriptive, will allow us to examine the effectiveness of the safety net in protecting vulnerable populations from deep poverty and to see how policies have adapted to changing risk factors over time.