Housing Subsidies in a Measure of Poverty

The objective of this paper is to review available research regarding the valuation of housing subsidies for inclusion in a measure of poverty. The introduction reviews the recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Panel on Poverty and Family Assistance (the panel), which motivate most of the subsequent research. The second section describes the valuation method currently used in the Current Population Survey (CPS). Following that in the third section is a review of each of 3 research papers that presented new methods for valuing housing subsidies on the CPS. The fourth section includes a review of 2 research papers that described applications of the subsidy valuation methods to measuring poverty in the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). The fifth section reviews the methods used in each of the official experimental poverty reports. The final section summarizes the themes of the assorted research efforts and reiterates some of the benefits and potential limitations of various methods.