Supplemental Poverty Measure: Measuring the Impact of Programs and Policies at the State Level Using the American Community Survey

Trudi Renwick, U.S. Census Bureau

This paper will provide poverty estimates of the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) for 2011 using the American Community Survey (ACS). The paper will include state level estimates of SPM rates and the impact of individual elements of the SPM. For the first time, this paper will compare the impact of individual elements of the SPM on SPM rates at the state level. This analysis will combine data from the ACS, the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC), and administrative data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to create a public use file. Records in the ACS will be matched with records in the CPS ASEC using a predicted means match. The file will include numerous implicates of the imputed variables to enable researchers to take into account both sample variance and the variance added by the imputations.