Brookings blog on measuring economic need

As staff at RMAPI will be quick to remind us, the federal poverty line is a limited measure of poverty. The measure is far too low. I often think of the scene from The West Wing (click here for a refresher) about the federal poverty line formula. 

On June 20th, Brookings published a blog post about measuring economic need, arguing for a calculation of a basket of basic necessities to highlight budget shortfalls. From this vantage point, the Economic Policy Institute at Brookings assembled family budgets, a variety of charts and figures, and an explanation of economic realities for too many families in the US. 

This community talks about poverty a lot, let’s make sure we know what poverty actually means.