Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Summary: The United States Poverty Measure has been flawed since it was first implemented in 1967 and in the 50 years since, there have been no updates to the measure. This is an intrinsic case study that examines the bureaucracy that has prevented the measure from being updated and explores policy lessons learned from recent progress made with a supplemental poverty measure.

Background: The United States Official Poverty Measure that persists today was developed in the 1960s based on a basket of food from the recommended diet of that time period and multiplied by three. This three times multiplier was selected because food comprised a third of the post-tax household budget in the 1960s. It is widely accepted by economists and policy makers that the current measure has been inaccurately measuring poverty since the 1960s. In 2010, the latest attempt to update the measure resulted in a research quality measure that supplements the official poverty measure.

Research Questions: Why have organizational cultures within the executive branch of the federal government prevented the US poverty measure from being updated? Considering the organizational culture, how was the Supplemental Poverty Measure able to break through some of this bureaucracy?

Method: This is an intrinsic case study. To answer the first research question, I will conduct a contextual analysis of official documents (e.g. memos and meeting minutes) relevant to the implementation of the measure and several different administrations’ attempts to update the poverty measure. To answer the second research question, I will conduct a series of iterative semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders involved in the development of the supplemental poverty measure. I will also conduct contextual analyses of official documents related to the supplemental poverty measure.

Preliminary Results: Critical experiences that occurred during the inception of the US poverty measure seemed to have shaped the organizational culture surrounding the US poverty measure in such a way that it has barred every attempt to update the poverty measure. The primary critical experience was the OMB Statistical Policy Directive No. 14 that makes the US poverty measure directly managed by the OMB and not a statistical agency. This vexatious policy directive made the US poverty measure the only national statistic to be managed directly by the OMB and not one of the statistical agencies. This lack of autonomy within the Census Bureau which oversees the implementation of the US poverty measure may be one of the greatest obstacles for implementing the poverty measure. Precarious values within the executive branch and key federal agencies may have also played a central role in preventing the update of the US poverty measure. The success of the Obama Administration in implementing a supplemental poverty measure in 2010 seems to have been largely due to the coordination of efforts by a leader within the administration which set the supplemental poverty measure as a priority during her tenure.