Editing Working poor (section)

==Measurement==
===Absolute===
According to the [[US Department of Labor]], the working poor "are persons who spent at least 27 weeks [in the past year] in the labor force (that is, working or looking for work), but whose incomes fell below the official poverty level."<ref name="bls2">{{cite web|url=http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2009.pdf|title=A Profile of the Working Poor, 2009|last=US Bureau of Labor Statistics|publisher=US Department of Labor|access-date=20 October 2011}}</ref>  In other words,  if someone spent more than half of the past year in the [[labor force]] without earning more than the official poverty threshold, the US Department of Labor would classify them as "working poor". (Note: The official poverty threshold, which is set by the US Census Bureau, varies depending on the size of a family and the age of the family members.) {{as of|2021}}, the poverty threshold for a family of four people is $27,479 and for a single person $13,788.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/faq/what-are-poverty-thresholds-today|title=What are the poverty thresholds today?|website=www.poverty.ucdavis.edu|date=12 September 2012 |language=EN-US|access-date=14 April 2023}}</ref>{{needs update|date=March 2023}}

The official poverty threshold is calculated by using the Consumer Price Index for goods, multiplying the cost of a minimum food diet in 1963 by three, a family's gross income (before tax), and the number of family members.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2019/demo/p60-268.html|title=The Supplemental Poverty Measure: 2018|website=www.census.gov|language=EN-US|access-date=22 October 2019}}</ref> In 2017, there were 6.9 million individuals defined as working poor.<ref name="bls2" /> Because there has been, and still is, debate on how accurate using this metric is, the US Census Bureau began publishing a Supplemental Poverty Measure in 2011. The main difference using this metric is that a person's poverty status is determined after subtracting taxes, food, clothing, shelter, utilities, childcare and work-related expenses, and including government benefits and people living in the home that do not fit the "family" definition (such as an unmarried couple, or dependent foster children). Using the SPM, the poverty rate overall increases, particularly the rate of the working poor. In 2018, the official rate was 5.1% vs the SPM's measure of 7.2%.<ref name=":0" />

===Relative===
In Europe and other non-US, high-income countries, poverty and working poverty are defined in relative terms.  A relative measure of poverty is based on a country's income distribution rather than an absolute amount of money. [[Eurostat]], the statistical office of the [[European Union]], classifies a household as poor if its income is less than 60 percent of the country's median household income.  According to Eurostat, a relative measure of poverty is appropriate because "minimal acceptable standards usually differ between societies according to their general level of prosperity: someone regarded as poor in a rich developed country might be regarded as rich in a poor developing country."<ref name="Eurostat poverty">{{cite web| last=European Working Conditions Observatory| title=Income Poverty in the European Union| url=http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/ewco/surveyreports/EU0703019D/EU0703019D_3.htm| publisher=Eurostat| access-date=2011-12-14| archive-date=2011-10-08| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111008213558/http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/ewco/surveyreports/EU0703019D/EU0703019D_3.htm| url-status=dead}}</ref>

According to the latest data the UK's working poor rate is 10%, with the median income being £507 per week in 2018.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN07096|title=Households Below Average Income: An Analysis of the UK Income Distribution: 1994/95 - 2017/18|date=28 March 2019|website=Department for Work & Pensions}}</ref>