|
Working
Paper Series:
07.19
Further Results on Measuring the Well-Being of the Poor Using Income and
Consumption
Bruce D. Meyer and James X. Sullivan
http://www.harrisschool.uchicago.edu/faculty/web-pages/bruce-meyer.asp
Abstract:
In the U.S., analyses of poverty rates and the effects of anti-poverty programs rely almost
exclusively on income data. In earlier work (Meyer and Sullivan, 2003) we emphasized
that conceptual arguments generally favor using consumption data to measure the wellbeing
of the poor, and, on balance, data quality issues favor consumption in the case of
single mothers. Our earlier work did not show that income and consumption differ in
practice. Here we further examine data quality issues and show that important
conclusions about recent trends depend on whether one uses consumption or income.
Changes in the distribution of resources for single mothers differ sharply in recent years
depending on whether measured by income or consumption. Measures of overall and
sub-group poverty also sharply differ. In addition to examining broader populations and
a longer time period, we also consider new dimensions of data quality such as survey and
item nonresponse, imputation, and precision. Finally, we demonstrate the flaws in recent
research that concludes that consumption and income trends are similar for disadvantaged
households, and that consumption data at the bottom are of lower quality than income
data.
The complete
document may be downloaded or viewed using Adobe
Acrobat Reader. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat
Reader, you can download
it from Adobe.
|
