The Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) released by the U.S. Census Bureau today (November 6, 2013) shows that the poverty rate for all persons was 16.0 percent in 2012, virtually the same as in 2011, 16.1 percent. A key finding in today’s Census release is that millions of people would have been poor in 2012 in the absence of our safety net programs. For example, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps) raised about 5 million people above the poverty line; the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and other refundable tax credits raised more than 9 million people above the poverty line.

The Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) is important because, unlike the Official Poverty Measure (OPM) which counts only money income (e.g., wages and cash transfers from the government), the SPM also includes non-cash government benefits such as SNAP, the school lunch program, housing subsidies and the EITC. These noncash benefits have grown more rapidly than cash benefits in recent decades.

The Russell Sage Foundation congratulates Greg J. Duncan, Distinguished Professor at the UC Irvine School of Education, who recently won the 2013 Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize for his extensive and influential research on the long-term effects of poverty on child development. For over 25 years, Duncan and his colleagues followed a sample of American families and their children to measure the correlations between poverty in early life and life circumstances as adults. The resulting data showed that children from poor families are less likely to finish school and go on to work, and that they earn less than their peers from higher income families. Duncan and his colleagues additionally found that childhood poverty during the first five years of children’s lives has a greater impact on their later lives.

A former RSF Visiting Scholar (2004-2005), Duncan is also the co-author or co-editor of several RSF books exploring the impact of poverty on children, including Consequences of Growing Up Poor, Higher Ground: New Hope for the Working Poor and their Children, Neighborhood Poverty Volume One and Volume Two, and For Better and For Worse: Welfare Reform and the Well-Being of Children and Families. With Richard J. Murnane, Duncan most recently co-edited Whither Opportunity?: Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children's Life Chances, which examines the corrosive effects of unequal family resources, disadvantaged neighborhoods, insecure labor markets, and worsening school conditions on children’s K-12 education.