Overview
- Michael W. Green’s viral Substack claim that a family of four needs roughly $140,000 drew wide attention, as economists faulted his use of average spending and high-cost Essex County data and pointed instead to documented benefit cliffs that complicate simple thresholds.
- The official poverty line still relies on a 1960s formula built around food costs, even though today’s budgets are driven far more by housing, health care, and childcare.
- The Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure, which counts taxes, noncash benefits, and local housing costs, places the poverty rate near 12.9% compared with 10.6% under the official metric.
- Living‑wage calculators underscore regional and household variation, with MIT’s tool estimating that a basic budget in Jackson, Mississippi exceeds $80,000 for some family types.
- Advocates warn that lowball thresholds obscure hardship for working parents, especially Black women, citing rising SPM poverty and surveys showing worsening conditions despite a tight labor market.