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

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...

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

The Poverty of "The Poverty Rate": Measure and Mismeasure of Want in Modern AmericaBy Nicholas EberstadtAEI Press, October 2008

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

America's poverty rates don't accurately measure poverty today.

Without a clearer sense of where we stand, how we got here and where we are headed, most initiatives aimed at reducing poverty in the United States will be needlessly ineffective.