Wednesday, March 17, 2010

You've got the form...Now fill it out and mail it back!


The official 2010 Census form arrived in mailboxes across the country starting March 15th. It took my maybe 2 minutes to fill it out. So now that you've got the form, mail it back!

Thursday, March 4, 2010

A better poverty measure


Pretty exciting news from the Census Bureau. The Census will begin developing an alternative way to measure poverty. Currently poverty is based on a formal developed in the 1960s, when food costs where a larger share of a household's income. Now food is less expensive and housing, child care, and medical expenses dominate.

While this is a big step forward in terms of better understanding the nature of poverty in the United States, changing the official poverty measure will most likely take years and a lot of political wrangling.

For more detailed information about this change see the Center for American Progress