Editing Poverty threshold (section)

==History==
[[Charles Booth (social reformer)|Charles Booth]], a pioneering investigator of poverty in London at the turn of the 20th century, popularised the idea of a ''poverty line'', a concept originally conceived by the [[London School Board]].<ref>{{cite journal |first1=Alan |last1=Gillie |title=The Origin of the Poverty Line |journal=Economic History Review |volume=49 |issue=4 |year=1996 |pages=715–730 [p. 726] |jstor=2597970 |doi=10.2307/2597970 }}</ref> Booth set the line at 10&nbsp;(50p) to 20 shillings&nbsp;(£1) per week, which he considered to be the minimum amount necessary for a family of four or five people to subsist on.<ref>{{cite book |first=David |last=Boyle |title=The Tyranny of Numbers |year=2000 |page=116 |publisher=HarperCollins |isbn=0-00-257157-9 }}</ref> [[Seebohm Rowntree]] (1871–1954), a British sociological researcher, social reformer and industrialist, surveyed rich families in [[York]], and drew a poverty line in terms of a minimum weekly sum of money "necessary to enable families&nbsp;… to secure the necessaries of a healthy life", which included fuel and light, rent, food, clothing, and household and personal items. Based on data from leading [[nutritionist]]s of the period, he calculated the cheapest price for the minimum [[calorific]] intake and nutritional balance necessary, before people get ill or lose weight. He considered this amount to set his poverty line and concluded that 27.84% of the total population of York lived below this poverty line.<ref name="Rowntree1901">{{cite book|first=Benjamin Seebohm|last=Rowntree|title=Poverty: A Study in Town Life|url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.90969|year=1901|publisher=Macmillan and Co}} p. 298</ref> This result corresponded with that from Booth's study of poverty in London and so challenged the view, commonly held at the time, that abject poverty was a problem particular to London and was not widespread in the rest of Britain. Rowntree distinguished between [[primary poverty]], those lacking in income and [[secondary poverty]], those who had enough income, but spent it elsewhere (1901:295–96).<ref name="Rowntree1901" />

The poverty threshold was first developed by [[Mollie Orshansky]] between 1963 and 1964. She attributed the poverty threshold as a measure of income inadequacy by taking the cost of food plan per family of three or four and multiplying it by a factor of three. In 1969 the inter agency poverty level review committee adjusted the threshold for only price changes.<ref>{{cite web|title=History of poverty thresholds|work=ASPE |date=23 November 2015 |url=https://aspe.hhs.gov/history-poverty-thresholds}}</ref>