The Economic Consequences of Homelessness in The US

family is working poor if the combined cash income of the family falls below the poverty
threshold for a family of their size. In 2009, the family-level working poverty rate in the
US was 7.9%, compared to 5.6% in 2000. Finally, the unrelated individual working
poverty rate measures working poverty among those who do not currently live with any
family members. In 2009, 11.7% of employed unrelated individuals were poor,
compared to 7.6% in 2000.
Relative
In Europe and other non-US, high-income countries, poverty and working poverty are
defined in relative terms. A relative measure of poverty is based on a country's income
distribution rather than an absolute amount of money. Eurostat, the statistical office of
the European Union, classifies a household as poor if its income is less than 60 percent
of the country's median household income. According to Eurostat, a relative measure of
poverty is appropriate because "minimal acceptable standards usually differ between
societies according to their general level of prosperity: someone regarded as poor in a
rich developed country might be regarded as rich in a poor developing country."
When conducting cross-national research on working poverty, scholars tend to use a
relative measure of poverty. In these studies, to be classified as "working poor," a
household must satisfy the following two conditions: 1) at least one member of the
household must be "working" (which can be defined in various ways), and 2) the total
household income must be less than 60% (or 50%, or 40%) of the median income for
that country. Brady, Fullerton, and Cross's 2010 cross-national study on working poverty
in high-income countries defines a household as working poor if 1) it has at least one
employed person and 2) the total household income falls below 50% of the median
income for that country. According to this relative definition, the US's working poverty
rate was 11% in the year 2000, nearly double the rate produced by the US
government's absolute definition. For the same year, Canada's working poverty rate
was 7.8%, the UK's was 4%, and Germany's was 3.8%.
Prevalence and Trends
Poverty is often associated with joblessness, but a large proportion of poor people are
actually working or looking for work. In 2009, according to the US Census Bureau's
official definition of poverty, 8.8 million US families were below the poverty line (11.1%
of all families). Of these families, 5.19 million, or 58.9%, had at least one person who
was classified as working. In the same year, there were 11.7 million unrelated
individuals (people who do not live with family members) whose incomes fell below the
official poverty line (22% of all unrelated individuals). 3.9 million of these poor
individuals, or 33%, were part of the working poor. The cost of raising a child from birth
to age 18 for a middle-income, two-parent family averaged $226,920 last year (not
including college), according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That's up nearly
40% -- or more than $60,000—from 10 years ago. Just one year of spending on a child
can cost up to $13,830 in 2010, compared to $9,860 a decade ago.
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