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Dear Next President, Please Change the Poverty Guidelines
Meet William. He lives in Hollywood | Photo by discarted via LAist Featured Photos
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.