September 2003

U.S. Census Bureau: Poverty in the United States: 2002

Poverty data offers an important way to evaluate the nations economic well-being. This report illustrates how the official poverty rates vary by selected characteristics - age, race and Hispanic origin, nativity, family composition, work experience, and geography. The data shows how many people were in poverty in 2002 and how the poverty population has changed. A description of how the Census Bureau measures poverty may be found on page 4. Because the poverty population in the United States is too diverse to be characterized along any one dimension, the report also includes several alternative ways of measuring poverty, and is accompanied by a separate report, Supplemental Measures of Material Well-Being: Expenditures, Consumption, and Poverty: 1998 and 2001 (P23-201).