The share of Americans in poverty fell by half a percentage point to 15.5 percent in 2013, the Census Bureau reported Thursday with its release of the Supplemental Poverty Measure, the second year in a row with a slight decline.
The total number of people in poverty, however, was not significantly different from 2012 at 48.7 million.
Thursday’s results from the Supplemental Poverty Measure follow the release of the Census’ official measure of poverty earlier in the month, which showed that the poverty rate declined for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis to 14.5 percent.
The Supplemental Poverty Measure is a research tool intended to add to the information contained in the official poverty measure, which is used in allocating funds in government programs. Unlike the official poverty measure, the supplemental measure takes into account the effects of in-kind government benefits, such as food stamps and housing assistance.
“The supplemental poverty measure is an important tool that helps policymakers and the public judge the effectiveness of social safety-net programs in a way that the official poverty measure cannot,” said Kathleen Short, the Census report’s author.
According to the 2013 figures, Social Security was the largest antipoverty program, decreasing the poverty rate by 8 percentage points. In other words, 24.1 percent of Americans would be considered poor by the supplemental measure if not for Social Security, rather than than 15.5 percent.
Refundable tax credits, such as the earned income tax credit and the refundable portion of the child tax credit, accounted for the second most poverty reduction, at nearly 3 percentage points. Food stamps were third, followed by unemployment insurance and Supplemental Security Income benefits for disabled non-workers.
The poverty rate remains higher in the Supplemental Poverty Measure than in the official measure despite the inclusion of those benefits because it calculates a different poverty line. The official poverty threshold is three times the cost of a minimum food diet in 1963, when it was first calculated. The supplemental poverty measure sets the threshold to the 33rd percentile of spending on expenditures on food, shelter, clothing, and utilities by U.S. families, meaning that the poverty line increases as U.S. consumer spending does.
