Subcommittee holds hearing on poverty measure calculation

The House Committee on Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Government Operations today held a hearing on potential changes to the annual inflation factor that the Census Bureau uses to measure poverty, which would have eligibility implications for a number of federal programs, including Medicaid and premium and cost-sharing subsidies for health insurance exchange enrollees. The White House Office of Management and Budget last year sought input on certain alternative inflation measures, such as the Chained CPI for All Urban Consumers and the CPI for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers. The AHA believes the Official Poverty Measure does not accurately reflect how many people in the country live in poverty, but in its comments to OMB, also said the proposed alternatives “are critically flawed in that they do not accurately represent low-income and poverty-level households.”