What No One’s Talking About in the New Poverty Data

Rebecca Vallas argues that the new poverty data show the United States still has a long way to go to build an economy that works for everyone.

Every September, the Census Bureau releases data on income, poverty, and health insurance, which give us an updated snapshot of poverty in the United States. And every year, we wonks spend the following days digging deep in the data for trends, changes, and indications of what’s working – and what’s not working – when it comes to public policy.

Wonky spelunking expeditions aside, the annual Census data typically get boiled down to one flagship statistic: the number of Americans living below the federal poverty line.

This is a huge problem for a number of reasons.

The above excerpt was originally published in Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity. Click here to view the full article.

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