Poverty and the Incidence of Material Hardship, Revisited

Income inequality has grown over the last decade, along with changes in the safety net, demographics, and income reporting. In this working paper released this month by the U.S. Census Bureau, trends in material hardship are examined in seven categories: food, health, housing, bill paying, fear of crime, neighborhood problems, and the lack of consumer goods. Data for this study was pulled from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) for the period covering 1992 to 2011. The data suggests that income volatility is a real challenge for many households and that declines in hardship were present among the lowest income groups surveyed.