Crossing Over the Poverty Line

Posted by Elena del Valle on October 24, 2012

By Nivene Judeh
Blogger, It’s Economic

Nivene Judeh, blogger, It’s Economic

It appears there’s some confusion about the meaning of “poverty.”

According to a new TNS Omnibus study for CashNetUSA (www.cashnetusa.com/do-you-consider-yourself-to-be-poor), 25.2 percent of the 1,000 participants, or more than one in four Americans, consider themselves to be poor. But according to the 2010 U.S. census, only one in six Americans actually lives below the federal poverty line.1 So where does the discrepancy come from?

The U.S. government’s definition of poverty consists of looking at a family’s or individual’s yearly cash income before taxes and comparing it to how much money is required to meet the needs of everyone in the household.

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