Little has changed in the way the federal government measures poverty since 1965.

Little has changed in the way the federal government measures poverty since 1965.

How out-of-pocket health spending added 10 million people to the ranks of the poor.

The health news for the New York City is good — very good, in fact. And it must be especially gratifying to Bloomberg, given his longstanding personal commitment to public health. But it isn’t clear that the official narrative of New York’s health progress actually conforms with the health story for New York over the last decade.

Since its inception in 1965, America's federally established official poverty rate (OPR) has been the single most important statistic used by policymakers and concerned citizens to evaluate success or failure in the nation's efforts to alleviate poverty. In his newly released examination of this widely quoted measure, The Poverty of...

The U.S. economy has grown considerably over the past three decades. However, there is a prevailing sentiment that the middle class and the poor have been left behind. Our results show evidence of considerable improvement in material well-being for both the middle class and the poor over the past three decades.

How does the government measure poverty in America? What are the pros and cons of its methods?

Eberstadt contends that the defects of the current poverty rate are not only severe but irremediable.