Dear Representative McDermott:

I am writing to provide information relevant to your efforts to update the poverty measure that the federal government uses. As you know, the current federal poverty guidelines are based on a methodology designed in the early 1960’s, using data from the 1950’s. While adoption the measure was a major advance at the time, it is now serious out of date and flawed.

We have been working for the past year on a new approach to measuring income security for older adults, the Elder Economic Security Standard Index (Elder Index). Originally developed by Wider Opportunities for Women and the University of Massachusetts-Boston, the Elder Index provides an empirically-driven way to identify the basic income needed by elders that varies by county, health status, and living arrangement. The attached document shows how we have implemented the Elder Index in California together with the Insight Center for Community Economic Development. It is critical that any poverty measure take into account the different balance of expenses through the life-cycle, which makes the Elder Index an excellent model.

Section 1150B in your bill includes many of the basic principles used in the Elder Index and its companion, the Family Economic Self-Sufficiency Standard. I encourage you to build upon the work of these existing measures in your bill.

If you need any additional information about the Elder Index please feel free to contact me at 310-794-0910 or email swallace@ucla.edu.

Sincerely,

Steven P. Wallace, Ph.D.

Professor, UCLA School of Public Health

Associate Director, UCLA Center for Health Policy Research