Poverty Research Working Paper

In August 2008, CEO issued its inaugural report on poverty entitled, The CEO Poverty Measure: A Working Paper by the New York City Center for Economic Opportunity. The study marks the first time a local government has sponsored research utilizing the recommendation developed by the National Academy of Sciences for an improved measure of poverty.

Findings

Using the Academy’s method, CEO found that the poverty rate in New York City in 2006 was 23.0 percent.  The corresponding poverty rate using the official method was 18.0 percent.  This was an attention-getting difference, but it became more meaningful to understanding poverty and more useful to understanding the effect of anti-poverty policies as we sifted through the data to examine how the change in methodologies affects specific groups within the City.  Single mothers and their families have been a programmatic focus in recent years.  We found that the poverty rate for children living in single parent families (while still quite high) is lower under the CEO measure than it is under the official method (41.6 percent rather than 44.4 percent).  On the other hand, we found a much higher poverty rate for New Yorkers 65 and older with the CEO measure (32.0 percent) than with the official measure (18.1 percent).  The CEO report suggests that the higher poverty rate for seniors is a result of their high out-of-pocket medical expenses.

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