ESTIMATING EARNINGS POVERTY IN 1939 - A COMPARISON OF ORSHANSKY-METHOD AND PRICE-INDEXED DEFINITIONS OF POVERTY

Official poverty lines do not exist for the United States for years pr ior to 1959. In this paper a poverty line comparable to the seminal li ne is constructed for 1939 using the Orshansky method. Poverty rates a re then calculated using the earnings data of the 1940 Public Use Micr odata Sample of the U.S. Census. A comparison with similar work by Ros s et al. (1987) demonstrates the degree to which continual price index ing of the poverty line results in inappropriate estimates. A trend of increasing incidence of poverty among female-headed households prior to 1960 is also revealed.