Report Calls for Better Poverty Index for Connecticut, Nation

"It's being called a better index for measuring poverty in Connecticut and the nation because it takes into account the impact of of anti-poverty programs and regional cost differences. The new report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation says the government's poverty index was created in the 1960s and is now is out of date.

Jim Horan, executive director with the Connecticut Association for Human Services, agrees a new tool, created in 2011 called the Supplemental Poverty Measure, provides a more accurate reading on how families in the state are really doing.

"We decrease from 196,000 kids in poverty to 102,000 kids in poverty because of SNAP, the Earned Income Tax Credit, subsidies for housing as well as Social Security," says Horan.

The Casey Foundation says when the impact of government programs is included in these calculations, more than 11 million children were lifted out of poverty between 2011 and 2013."

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