Mollie Orshansky figured out how to measure poverty. You have to hand it to her – for almost 60 years, her definition of poverty has held up. In 1963 she established a definition of poverty as she worked for the Social Security Administration. She was working on a research project about poverty and children.
At that time there was no standard to measure poverty, so she created one. Mollie started with the cost of a minimum food diet, according to the Department of Agriculture. She figured that if you can’t feed yourself adequately, then you are in poverty. She further postulated that food should be only one-third of a household budget because that was the average experience of families at the time. Then voila! A poverty threshold surfaced – a measure of poverty. Below that income level, a person or family was “in poverty” and above it, they were not.
Mollie figures prominently in the history of welfare. She once said “If it is not possible to state unequivocally “how much is enough,” it should be possible to assert with confidence how much, on average, is too little.” More
Mollie Grew up poor
Mollie grew up poor and was the first in her family to go to college, where she got a degree in mathematics and statistics. She once said, “If I write about the poor, I don’t need a good imagination — I have a good memory.” She worked as an economist and statistician for 40 years for the federal government and died at the age of 91. She was so influential that her colleagues and friends referred to her as Ms. Poverty.
Mollie never intended for her simple calculation to be used to measure poverty in America for 60 years, but that is exactly what happened. And why not? It is very useful to have an income cutoff that defines poverty and lets us see how many people are below that number. That is why Mollie’s method has lasted so long. Her calculation of poverty has increased each year by inflation, but otherwise, it’s her number still in use today. Amazing. More.
The above is an excerpt is from the book Poverty in the United States, chapter three. More.