Longitudinal Measures of Poverty: Accounting for Income and Assets Over Time

This paper uses data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation to estimate durations of poverty spells and to determine whether temporarily poor families have sufficient assets to cover the shortfall of their incomes below poverty—their personal poverty gaps. If poverty is measured using monthly rather than annual income data, four times as many persons enter poverty, but most spells are short: the median duration is between four and six months. More than one‐third of all poverty spells are eliminated if financial assets are used to fill poverty gaps, but remaining poverty spells are longer. Separate estimates are made for the elderly and for families with children.