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LA City Councilman Richard Alarcon and representatives from over 20 organizations announced that they will be calling on new the President-elect and Congress to update the Federal Poverty Guidelines. They'll be making their way to Washington DC to lobby for the cause. From Alarcon's office:
The Federal Poverty Guidelines were established in 1963 by the Social Security Administration to establish a baseline for measuring poverty. The guidelines take the dollar costs of food for families of three or more people and multiply that number by a factor of three. The Federal Poverty Guidelines do not take into account regional differences in the cost of living, meaning a family living in rural Wyoming is measured the same as a family living in Los Angeles despite the considerable cost differences. Currently, the threshold for poverty for a family of four is $21,650.
In 2007, the City Council supported a resolution introduced by Councilmember Alarcon to support updating the Federal Poverty Guidelines and called on all of the presidential candidates (Democrats and Republicans) to take a position on this issue. Sen. Obama wrote a letter in support, while Sen. McCain did not respond. Changing the formula of how poverty is calculated from the current
federal poverty guidelines to a regionally based formula would allow the
federal government to better target poverty-prevention resources and
give a better picture of the extent of poverty in the United States.