Supplemental Poverty Measure

On November 7, the Center on Children and Families at the Brookings Institution and the Census Bureau sponsored a private half-day seminar to examine the Bureau’s work on the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM). The Census Bureau released its first report on the SPM that it has been developing for several years. The Bureau has no plans to change the official poverty measure which will remain the measure used to determine eligibility and the distribution of grant dollars for federal grant programs.