Poverty and the Incidence of Material Hardship, Revisited

Objective: We examine trends in seven types of material hardship, such as food and housing hardships, and how their incidence by poverty status changed over the 1992 to 2011 period. Method: We use data from multiple panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation and logistic regressions to examine these relationships. Results: We find declines in four of the seven hardships, with little change or moderate increases for the others. Declines were larger for hardships more dependent on longer-term income flows, while those more sensitive to short-term income fluctuations declined by less (or increased). Notably, declines in hardship were most evident among the lowest-income groups over the period. Conclusion: That short-term hardships did not decline suggests that income volatility poses an important challenge for many households. Larger declines in hardship among the lowest income groups suggest a greater under-reporting of income over time and the presence of family resources not comprehensively counted in the official poverty measure.