The SPM, first released in 2011 and produced with support from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), extends the official poverty measure by taking account of many government programs that are designed to assist low-income families but are not included in the official poverty measure. The SPM also includes federal and state taxes and work and medical expenses. In addition, the SPM accounts for geographic variation in poverty thresholds, while the official poverty measure does not.

Census website that has the report data, including useful statistics such as official poverty measure by state, margins of error, and further information on how poverty data is collected in the census: https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2022/demo/p60-277.html

The map was created using MapChart.

Mississippi not winning this battle?

Mississippi has the highest official poverty rate, but when adjusted for cost of living it drops "all the way down" to fourth highest (including DC).

I’ve never heard of the SPM, very interesting. Thanks, OP.

Hmm what's going on with the cheddar states??

Worth highlighting that because the SPM adjusts for geographical housing costs, high cost of living locations are naturally going to have much higher rates of poverty. Many people are being priced out of high cost of living areas (and is an important part of the picture), but also worth understanding that even people making well above the poverty line would be considered poor in this measure, even if they're not considered poor in the majority of the country.

Why would it matter if they're not considered poor in the majority of the country, when their income makes them poor where they actually live? If you tell someone making $40k in San Francisco that $40k isn't considered poor in Mississippi, that doesn't help the fact that they can't pay their bills every month

I agree with you, and noted this as important in my comment above. I'm just adding context for understanding why the SPM differs from the official measure of poverty.

Oh this is nice. Is there an inverse correlation with the state's GDP, or average income? Seems that the rich states are the ones having high poverty rate.

It's hard to be homeless in the middle of a field in Montana.

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I did some quick data analysis because your comment made me curious, and it looks like there are only very weak correlations (R^2 < 0.2) between state GDP or average income and SPM values with low slope trendlines. I can see where the idea comes from, though, with many of the richest states also having high SPM. That said, there are notable exceptions (Illinois, Washington, Massachusetts, etc.) to this, and you can see many of the poorest states also have high SPM values. All in all, it's a wash.

I always thought of Califronia as a rich state with glamourous Holywood people. Same with New York with its wal street and rich investment bankers.

Well, you're not entirely wrong to think that. While these places are rich when taken as a whole or on average, there is a lot of poverty that exists too.

Does the SPM take homelessness into account? If it has weighting for higher rates of unhoused individuals, the correlation could simply be with climate. CA and TX for example are wealthy, have higher than average homelessness, and have few days below freezing annually in their major population centers.

Low cost of living, decent wages/jobs, beautiful land. Nevermind don't come here it's awful!

The data comes from the Current Population Survey, which is sponsored jointly by the U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Department of Labor Statistics. This is a household survey, so it only samples those with an address. This is a potential shortcoming of the survey, as states like Hawaii, New York, and California with homelessness rates of ~0.3% to ~0.5% may in fact get undercounted.

The Midwest plus some of the mountain states and upper New England looking good

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Rich on the coasts. Inland? I'm from Alabama and drove through some parts of the Inland Empire where I thought I was cruising through Wilcox County.

Haha it's funny probably could've landed a gig in Wisconsin if I really tried

How about against average house prices?

Probably more cost of living than anything else. I’m comfortably upper middle class in the Midwest but my same salary would put me at or below the poverty line in NYC, DC, or San Fran. Which this measure accounts for

I can’t wait to hear all the Californians tell everyone why it’s not Californians fault.

Winter kills off the weak

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It's better, but still a weak correlation (using median home prices).

That's probably because its far tougher to be homeless in Minnesota in January than California. It goes below freezing and then stays there 24 hours a day for weeks on end, sometimes. The outdoors just becomes lethal. Lots of people hop on trains or evacuate for winter and come back during more temperate months. Some people tough it out.

It's very hard to see people living in tents outside when its -20 degrees and not believe that our system is fucked to hell and back. Yet some manage to do just that.

You have to love the tenacity by which MS holds on to their standards. They were low in 1850's, and by god, FOR god, they shall low remain!

Wow, what’s going on with CA and NY?

Homeless people make up a negligible share of those in poverty though. The big difference is that California has a huge poor migrant hispanic population and a high cost of living

This survey doesn't account for homelessness, though. OP mentioned in another comment that only people with addresses were surveyed.

This measure captures housing costs. They have gone up just about everywhere, but several highly populated areas in California are amongst the most expensive in the country. They also have very high gdp, of course.

So if it’s California’s (or anyone’s) “fault”, it’s because they didn’t build enough non-market housing. Which I would agree with.

I love that this captures local/state housing costs. That makes much more sense than leaving it out of context.

When extremely rich states like California have the highest poverty rates, it seems to highlight the failure of the real estate housing market in proving economically appropriate shelter for sizeable portions of the population. I would argue that non market housing is an appropriate remedy.

TBH I'd rather work more in the winter then summer Time

That's all true, but in California, the Pot is extremely strong. There's a horde of young people that don't have jobs and are begging on the street. It's as bad a heroin addiction. This pot gives you schizophrenia symptoms too. Plus the dealers are cutting their weed with fentanyl.

NJ just passed a law banning legal sale of overly potent weed. It's an epidemic.

"New Jersey will cap total dose per package at 100mg THC, and the edible in each package must be demarcated into 10mg THC portions."

Also, it seems to be happening in NY too.

It roughly correlates to cost of living, but Hawaii and Washington (which have high cost of living) are still pretty low in this measure.

It's just a combination of cost of living and unadjusted poverty rate. Hawaii and Washington have very low unadjusted poverty rates. California has very high cost of living.

I totally agree!

Stats to back that up?

When you take error margins, it gets even more telling. Alabama has the highest margin of error (and by a decent margin, +/- 1.9%, next would be KY/AZ at 1.4). It's error range overlaps with the majority of the error ranges of other states. The only state it doesn't overlap with, where Alabama is the lower range, is California (DC, too, but that's not a state.).

Holy cow that's a lot of misinformation. No, weed does not give you schizophrenia symptoms. No, people are not putting fentanyl into weed. Are edible THC products too strong? Sure, I'll give you that. Most people without a tolerance do not need the high amount of THC in edibles, especially considering most people want to eat more than one bite of something.

I think it's interesting to see this violate the usual political leanings. Blue California and New York don't fare too well, but neither do deep south Louisiana, Mississippi or Florida. On the other hand leftward leaning Illinois, New Jersey and Massachusetts are middle-of-the-road.

I thought this was interesting too. The correlation between political leaning (Using 2020 presidential margin) and SPM is negligible - it basically just looks like a blob on a scatter chart.

Greedy ass California property owners are the leading cause of that deep red color.