I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
The federal poverty rate in the United States is expected to be 15 percent when 2009 census data is unveiled later this year, up from 13.2 percent in 2008. But many think that figure is low because of the way the federal government measures poverty, which doesn’t include many of the monthly expenses that families have no choice but to make. On the other hand, the calculation of income used when measuring poverty also doesn’t include the billions of public safety net dollars distributed to families.
The current formula for measuring poverty has been unchanged since 1963, according to a Stateline report. That measure doesn’t include medical costs, transportation, or the regional differences in cost of housing. It also only counts pre-tax cash income when measuring what a family has to spend each month, leaving out benefits like food stamps, housing vouchers, tax credits, and child-care subsidies. These flaws in the formula make it difficult for policy makers to have a clear picture of the degree of poverty, or how government programs help alleviate poverty.
The Obama administration plans to begin using a new supplemental poverty measure in 2011, based on recommendations made by the National Academy of Sciences in 1995. That measure will use Commerce Department data for expenditures on food, clothing, shelter, and other household expenses to develop a poverty threshold for a family of four. That threshold will be compared to a family or individual’s income, which will be calculated using both income and in-kind benefits, excluding taxes and other “non-discretionary” expenses like child care and medical expenses.
The use of the new data is likely to lead to a charged political environment, because it will most likely lead to a changed picture of where poverty is most severe in the nation. This in turn would change formulas used for distributing federal dollars to the states.
