Do you know that the Federal Poverty Line was never intended to be used to qualify families in need?
The researcher who created the formula for the FPL, Mollie Orshansky, created it to calculate a basic, low-cost food plan for the elderly. Every year on the anniversary of the FPL, up until her death in 2007, she would publish a fiery article about how flawed this measure is and how detrimental government reliance on this cutoff point has been.
Without a doubt, action is long overdue. The FPL for a family of 4 is defined as $22,050. Can you imagine raising 3 kids on that total income? That's less than $1,900 a month. We're talking severe poverty by U.S. standards.
According to a recent article in the Hartford Courant, the Obama administration intends to take some small steps to correct this measure. Personally, I would rather abolish the measure all together and create a standard that represents a decent quality of life but I suspose that makes me one of those "anti-poverty advocates who have an appetite for changing the inaccurate status quo" that the Courant refers to...
Check out the article here
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