Is the Census Bureau Defintion the best one?
According to the New York Times defining poverty is not easy. Even if the Census Bureau's new measure calculates necessary expenditures more accurately than the current formula, the new approach, like the current one, still uses income as the single criterion for judging who is poor.
That leaves out neighborhoods, for instance. Is a ghetto family impoverished because of its crime-ridden surroundings and poor schools, although the family has enough income to rise above the official poverty threshold? And there is the issue of responsibility. Should the family of a hardworking full-time employee earning the minimum wage be blamed for poverty because the minimum no longer lifts the worker's income above the poverty level, as it did in the 1960's and early 70's?
Why is it that when people think of the poverty they always think of the "ghettos" the neighboorhoods filled with black people?
In my opinion they think that way because the media portrays it that way. What do they mean by the "ghetto family?" They are right when they say that its hard to define poverty. There is too many people in the world living in low and even below average housing and the so-called poverty line.