Executive Summary: Understanding Poverty in America by Robert E. Rector and Kirk A. Johnson, Ph.D. Executive Summary #1713 January 5, 2004 | Full Text | | If poverty means lacking nutritious food, adequate warm housing, and clothing for a family, relatively few of the 35 million people identified as being "in poverty" by the Census Bureau could be characterized as poor. While material hardship does exist in the United States, it is quite restricted in scope and severity. The average "poor" person, as defined by the government, has a living standard far higher than the public imagines. The following are...