Poverty

Two related versions of federal poverty measures are shown in Health, United States.

National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES)

NHANES uses a ratio of family income to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) poverty guidelines. The poverty guidelines are calculated from the U.S. Census Bureau’s poverty thresholds and issued annually by HHS. These guidelines are often used to determine financial eligibility for certain federal programs. The HHS poverty guidelines consider family size but not family composition. Three sets of guidelines are defined for the 48 contiguous states and District of Columbia, Alaska, and Hawaii. For more information, see the HHS Poverty Guidelines website.

The ratio of family income to HHS poverty guidelines is computed considering the respondent’s family income, family size, state, and appropriate guideline year. People with unknown family income are excluded from estimates by poverty level, because their percentage of poverty level cannot be calculated. The percentage of people with unknown percentage of poverty level varies across data sets. See “National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey: Analytic Guidelines, 1999–2010.”