The current official poverty measure
was developed in the early 1960s, and
only a few minor changes have been
implemented since it was first adopted in
1969 (Orshansky, 1963, 1965a, 1965b;
Fisher, 1992). This measure consists of
a set of thresholds for families of different sizes and compositions that are
compared to before-tax cash income to
determine a family’s poverty status. At
the time they were developed, the official
poverty thresholds represented the cost
of a minimum diet multiplied by three (to
allow for expenditures on other goods
and services)