The poverty rate in the United States dropped slightly in 2013, according to a new report released Thursday by the Census Bureau.
Last year, the poverty rate was 15.5 percent, down from 16 percent in 2012, the bureau’s supplemental poverty measure indicates.
Nearly 49 million were living below the poverty line in 2013, the new report found.
Compared to the official poverty rate, the supplemental poverty measure serves as an alternative indicator of economic well-being and takes into account economic conditions and the effects of certain policies, the Census Bureau says.
The supplemental 2013 rate, however, is higher than the official poverty rate measure of 14.5 percent, which the government released in September.
{mosads}Unlike the official poverty measure, the supplemental includes the effect of certain benefits and necessary expenses on family income as well as geographic differences and housing costs.
“The supplemental poverty measure is an important tool that helps policymakers and the public judge the effectiveness of social safety-net programs in a way that the official poverty measure cannot,” Kathleen Short, the report’s author, said in a statement.
“It also helps us track how necessary expenses, such as paying taxes or work-related and medical-out-of-pocket expenses, affect the economic well-being of all families.”
As opposed to the official poverty measure, the supplemental excludes out-of-pocket medical expenses, income and payroll taxes, childcare expenses and work-related expenses from people’s income.
The thresholds for people living in poverty also varied in the supplemental measure based on family size, mortgage rents and geography.
For families with two adults and two children, for example, $18,000 was the lowest threshold for homeowners outside metropolitan areas without a mortgage. For the same family size in metropolitan areas with a mortgage, the highest threshold was around $35,000. The official threshold for a family of four was $23,624 no matter where they lived.