This database contains the total number of persons in poverty in the United States and the share of children in poverty by racial and ethnic measures.  Poverty is based on money income thresholds that vary by family size and composition to determine who is in poverty. If a family's total income is less than the family's threshold, then that family and every individual in it is considered in poverty. The official poverty thresholds do not vary geographically, but they are updated for inflation using Consumer Price Index (CPI-U). The official poverty definition uses money income before taxes and does not include capital gains or noncash benefits (such as public housing, Medicaid, and food stamps). The average poverty threshold for a family of four in 2011 was $23,021.

Over the years, the Census Bureau has implemented several changes in its collection of these data.  As a result, data are not available for all possible search combinations. These changes include:

• 1967: New Current Population Survey processing system
• 1971: Census population controls
• 1974: New Current Population Survey (CPS) processing system that asked eleven income questions
• 1979: Census population controls and a questionnaire with 27 possible values from 51 possible sources of income; also, unrelated subfamilies were excluded from all families
• 1981, Three technical changes to the poverty definition
• 1983: Implementation of Hispanic population weighting controls

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• 1987: Implementation of a new March CPS processing system
• 1992: Implementation of 1990 census population controls
• 1993: Data collection method changed from paper and pencil to computer- assisted interviewing and changes in  income amounts on selected questionnaires items
• 1999: Implementation of Census 2000 based population controls
• 2000: Implementation of Census 2000 based population controls and sample expanded by 28,000 households
• 2003: CPS offered respondents the option of choosing more than one race
• 2010: Implementation of Census 2010-based population controls, including a provision that allowed people of Hispanic origin to identify with any race.