3. Persons in Family or Household 48 Contiguous States and D.C. AlaskaHawaii 1$10,400$13,000$11,960 214,00017,50016,100 317,60022,00020,240 421,20026,50024,380 524,80031,00028,520 628,40035,50032,660 732,00040,00036,800 835,60044,50040,940 For each additional person, add 3,6004,5004,140 SOURCE: Federal Register, Vol. 73, No. 15, January 23, 2008, pp. 3971–3972

4. Persons in familyPoverty guideline 1$10,830 214,570 318,310 422,050 525,790 629,530 733,270 837,010 For families with more than 8 persons, add $3,740 for each additional person. SOURCE: Federal Register, Vol. 74, No. 14, January 23, 2009, pp. 4199–4201

5.  The poverty thresholds were originally developed in 1963-1964 by Mollie Orshansky of the Social Security Administration. Orshansky took the dollar costs of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s economy food plan for families of three or more persons and multiplied the costs by a factor of three. She followed somewhat different procedures to calculate thresholds for one- and two-person units in order to allow for the relatively larger fixed costs that small family units face. (The economy food plan used by Orshansky is included in a 1962 Agriculture Department report that is available on the Census Bureau’s website.)

6.  Orshansky used a factor of three because the Agriculture Department’s 1955 Household Food Consumption Survey found that for families of three or more persons, the average dollar value of all food used during a week (both at home and away from home) accounted for about one third of their total money income after taxes.

7.  In May 1965, the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity adopted Orshansky’s poverty thresholds as a working or quasi- official definition of poverty. In August 1969, the U.S. Bureau of the Budget (predecessor of the Office of Management and Budget) designated the poverty thresholds with certain revisions as the federal government’s official statistical definition of poverty.

8.  The official poverty rate in 2007 was 12.5 percent, not statistically different from 2006.  In 2007, 37.3 million people were in poverty, up from 36.5 million in 2006.  Poverty rates in 2006 were statistically unchanged for non-Hispanic Whites (8.2 percent), Blacks (24.5 percent), and Asians (10.2 percent) from 2006. The poverty rate increased for Hispanics (21.5 percent in 2007, up from 20.6 percent in 2006).  Real median household income increased 1.3 percent between 2006 and 2007, from $49,568 to $50,233

9.  The poverty rate in 2006 was lower than in 1959, the first year for which poverty estimates are available (Figure 3). From the most recent trough in 2000, the rate rose for four consecutive years, from 11.3 percent in 2000 to 12.7 percent in 2004, and then declined to 12.3 percent in 2006 – a rate not statistically different from those in 2002 and 2003 (12.1 percent and 12.5 percent, respectively).  For children under 18 years old and people aged 18 to 64, the poverty rates (17.4 percent and 10.8 percent, respectively) and the numbers in poverty (12.8 million and 20.2 million, respectively) remained statistically unchanged from 2005.  Both the poverty rate and the number in poverty decreased for people aged 65 and older (9.4 percent and 3.4 million in 2006, down from 10.1 percent and 3.6 million in 2005)