To put those numbers in perspective, the median U.S. household income in 2022 was $74,580 – more than two times the poverty threshold. About 38 million Americans – nearly 12% – live at or below the poverty line. And 16.1 of children under the age of 6 live in poverty.

In the early 1960s, Mollie Orshansky, a government statistician, developed the official poverty measure that is still in use today.

In her earlier statistical work with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Orshansky had calculated that people spend roughly a third of their incomes on food. Known as the bread basket method, the income level used to define poverty was calculated based on the cost of feeding a family.

Since the 1960s, the rate of people living in poverty has held steady between 11% and 15%.

But the measurement has a few shortcomings.

Take the regional differences in costs for the same products. In early 2024, for instance, a loaf of bread in Los Angeles, California, was $4.73, while in Louisville, Kentucky, the same loaf was $2.46.

Another flaw is the definition of what constitutes a family of four members.

The costs of feeding a family of four can be vastly different for a single mother with three school-age children than a married couple with two infant children.

Starting in 2011, the second metric that the Census Bureau officials use is the supplemental poverty rate.

Unlike the official poverty rate, the supplemental rate takes into account various types of government aid such as food, housing and energy assistance, as well as tax credits and stimulus payments. The measurement also calculates regional differences in the cost of living, medical care and housing.

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