Poverty

The Report Card  benchmark is to reduce the percentage of women living below the poverty threshold to zero percent.

Data Source: Poverty (%), 2005-2006

EXPLANATION:

The measure is based on total family income level, and includes all civilian, non-institutionalized women age 18 and older who live in a family whose income falls below the federal poverty threshold. Following the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) Statistical Policy Directive 14, the U.S. Census Bureau uses a set of money income thresholds that vary by family size and composition to determine who is in poverty. If a family's total income is less than the threshold that corresponds to that family's size and composition, then that family, and every individual in it, is considered in poverty. The official poverty definition counts money income before taxes and does not include capital gains and noncash benefits (such as public housing, Medicaid, and food stamps). Joseph Dalaker and Bernadette D. Proctor, Poverty in the United States: 1999 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2000), vii.

SOURCE:

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey (CPS), "Annual Social and Economic Supplement" (ASEC) 2006, 2007 (databases) (unpublished data available at http://www.census.gov/cps/). The overall state data and the state data by age group are based on estimates of pooled 2005 and 2006 data from the 2006 and 2007 CPS ASEC. The overall U.S. data and U.S. data by age group are based on 2006 data from the 2007 CPS ASEC. Data by race/ethnicity at the state and national level are for 2005 to 2006 and are from the 2006 and 2007 CPS ASEC.