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Full-Text Articles in Political Economy
A New Approach To Measuring Poverty In The United States: A Household's Ability To Consume, David Ashelman
A New Approach To Measuring Poverty In The United States: A Household's Ability To Consume, David Ashelman
Applied Economics Theses
The definition of poverty is a social construct. As such, quantitatively measuring poverty is problematic, and creates ineffective poverty-alleviation policy. This thesis examines the historical measure of poverty in the United States, compares U.S. poverty measurements to Great Britain and Canada, and then proposes a new way to measure poverty. Instead of measuring income as the defining factor of poverty, the new poverty measurement suggested eliminates income factors and focuses on a household’s ability to consume in a non-comparative manner. When quantifying a household’s ability to consume, implications arise in economic policy for anti-poverty programs, defining the middle class, minimum …
An Evaluation Of The Proposal To Implement A Chained Weighted Cpi, David Lock
An Evaluation Of The Proposal To Implement A Chained Weighted Cpi, David Lock
Applied Economics Theses
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) recently developed a way to view price changes in the economy called the chained consumer price index (C-CPI-U). There is much debate over this calculation because, if implemented, it would greatly affect government spending on programs such as Social Security and Veteran benefits. A quick overview of how the C-CPI-U is calculated does not appear to be anything to disagree with. A conclusion which can be drawn, and will be discussed in this thesis, is that the major controversy lies in what will happen to those who benefit from possible reduction of benefits in …