The Official Poverty Measure (OPM) was designed in the early 1960s and officially adopted in 1969. But it was never intended to be anything more than a temporary solution to the problem of measuring poverty. Not until the 1990s did work begin on developing a new method for measuring poverty and only this year did the Census Bureau publish its initial set of supplemental poverty estimates. The new supplemental poverty measure addresses problems inherent in the official poverty measure and provides a new perspective on the numbers of those in poverty based on age, race, and ethnicity.
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