[Mr. Jeeves]

The statistic for poverty level in actual use, according to HHS, uses a basis of what a healthy diet consists of, deterimines the price of that diet as it was determined back in 1969 and multiplies it by three updating it for CPI year.

The problem with that is that there have been tremendous advances in agricultural productivity since 1969 that have kept food prices relatively low. On an inflation-adjusted basis, food is cheaper today than it has ever been. Housing, on the other hand, has skyrocketed - but isn't accounted for in the HHS calculation. I guess the assumption is that the real poor won't try to live in their own housing, but will prefer government projects.

And no Administration is ever going to change the calculation, because any change would result in a greatly increased number of "poor" on that President's watch.

[ancient_geezer]

The problem with that is that there have been tremendous advances in agricultural productivity since 1969 that have kept food prices relatively low.

Since the baseline is 1969, and it is adjusted with overall CPI, three time that amount still reflects a reasonable calculation for the threshold povertylevel expenditure.

And no Administration is ever going to change the calculation, because any change would result in a greatly increased number of "poor" on that President's watch.

And this is somehow bad? Maintaining a consistant and conservative measure assures the sales tax rebate does not end up being a sumplement to income, it will remain just what it is, a rebate of taxation at the level of necessity spending.

[Kellis91789]

Your claim that housing costs have skyrocketed since 1969 is not true everywhere. The term "skyrocket" seems a little bit of hyperbole. In fact, on average, home ownership is actually higher now than it was in 1969. That implies housing is not actually a lot more expensive than it was in 1969. Only in certain markets has housing cost become ridiculous.

Look at the first chart here :

http://www.heritage.org/Research/SmartGrowth/BG1426.cfm

Living in SoCal where a modest home runs at least $500K, I often forget that you can still buy a 3br2ba home in Ft Worth, TX or Memphis, TN for less than $150K. Inflation adjusted, that would have been $28K in 1969.