NZ poverty line much higher than US

The Feminist News carried an article about poverty in the US.

The 77 million Americans who live in poverty areas - defined as an area where over one-fifth of the residents earn incomes below the current poverty line of $23,600 for a family of four - is a significant increase from the 18 percent recorded by the Census Bureau in 2000.

I checked this with a government resource which has a slightly different poverty line of $23,850.

I am interested how their poverty line compares to ours.

Currently US $23,600 equates to NZ $27,066.

NZ uses an equivalisation (see P43 for explanation) method to make various household types comparable.

Table A4 (reproduced below) shows that a family of 2 adults and two children would need $28,100 to have the same purchasing power as a family of 1 adult and one child on $18,300. 


The HES finds:

 "The overall median BHC household disposable income in the 2013 HES was $67,700 (ordinary dollars). In equivalised terms this is 33,500 dollars per equivalent adult."

We commonly use 60 percent as the poverty threshold. Apply it to the equivalent adult sum above to get $20,100.

We can then go back to table A4 and work out how much that would equate to for a family of 4.

At $20,000 the amount required to have the same purchasing power is $43,400.

Below that and you are in poverty.

So our commonly used poverty line for a family of four is $43,400 compared to America's $27,066.

Our poverty line is 60 percent higher.

Table A.4

Conversion of equivalised dollars to ordinary dollars for households with low-to-middle unequivalised incomes

Equiv income	Income for families and households of various types in ‘ordinary dollars’
	(1,0)	(1,1)	(1,2)	(1,3)	(2,0)	(2,1)	(2,2)	(2,3)	(2,4)	(3,0)
	1.00	1.40	1.75	2.06	1.54	1.86	2.17	2.43	2.69	1.98
$10,000	10,000	14,000	17,500	20,600	15,400	18,600	21,700	24,300	26,900	19,800
$11,000	11,000	15,400	19,300	22,700	16,900	20,500	23,900	26,730	29,600	21,800
$12,000	12,000	16,900	21,000	24,700	18,500	22,300	26,000	29,160	32,300	23,800
$13,000	13,000	18,300	22,800	26,800	20,000	24,200	28,100	31,600	35,000	25,800
$14,000	14,000	19,700	24,500	28,800	21,600	26,000	30,400	34,000	37,700	27,700
$15,000	15,000	21,100	26,300	30,900	23,100	27,900	32,600	36,500	40,400	29,700
$20,000	20,000	28,100	35,000	41,200	30,800	37,200	43,400	48,600	53,800	39,600
$25,000	25,000	35,100	43,800	51,500	38,500	46,500	54,000	60,800	67,100	49,400
$30,000	30,000	42,100	52,400	61,600	46,100	55,900	64,800	72,900	80,600	59,300
$35,000	35,000	49,200	61,200	71,800	53,800	65,200	75,600	85,100	94,000	69,200
$40,000	40,000	56,200	69,900	82,100	61,500	103,700	74,600	86,400	97,200	79,000
$45,000	45,000	63,200	78,600	92,400	69,200	83,900	97,100	109,400	120,800	88,900
$50,000	50,000	70,236	87,367	102,641	76,844	93,200	107,900	121,500	134,300	98,800

·      This table uses the 1988 Revised Jensen equivalence scale, as does the rest of the report, except where it is stated otherwise.