Poverty estimatesthe number and percentage of persons living in povertyhave been of interest to Congress not only to gauge the nations economic health, but also because they are used to determine funding allocations for a variety of programs. Chapter 1 provides a synopsis of poverty measurement in the United States, focusing on the following: the official measure of poverty, which is used to obtain official counts and percentages of the poor; the Supplemental Poverty Measure, which is used for research purposes only and was developed to improve upon some limitations of the official measure;...