Poverty Functions and the Aged Population

Poverty numbers have decreased in the United States over the past few decades but these statistics tend to mask trends for different demographic groups. Aged women living alone make up 95 per cent of non‐family households, and 47 per cent of these women had annual incomes of less than $10,000 and most were living at the poverty threshold in 1989. Concern about poverty among the aged is addressed from two perspectives. First, changes in the magnitude, characteristics and incidence of poverty among the aged population are reviewed. Secondly, analytical models of the severity of poverty are presented and these models are used to describe techniques that may be employed in attempting to alleviate poverty in one category of the aged poor where it seems most acute and most intractable, i.e. aged women living alone. Three poverty models are presented: (1) concentrating economic aid to those just below the poverty threshold and reducing numbers; (2)concentrating aid to those in deepest need; and (3) a sliding scale. The modified welfare ratio model showed that concentrating economic aid to the aged poor in deepest need (furthest from the poverty threshold)yields greater social and economic benefits.