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
|
