Historical Supplemental Poverty Measure Data
With funding from the Annie E. Casey Foundation and The JPB Foundation, the Center on Policy and Social Policy created a historical version of the US Census Bureau Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM). The SPM improves upon official poverty statistics by taking a fuller accounting of the resources that families have at their disposal and is a useful tool for analyzing the effects of social policies on the lives of low-income families. The historical SPM dataset makes SPM poverty rates available back to 1967, the first year the official poverty measure began, to enable tracking of poverty trends and the impact of policy changes over time.
Registered Users
Log in to access the public-use SPM data.
New Users
Register for public-use SPM data access.
Historical SPM Data Table
For a quick look, our historical SPM data table features SPM poverty rates from 1967 to 2020, plus SPM poverty rates anchored to the 2012 SPM poverty thresholds. Results are calculated at the population level, as well as for children, working-age adults, and the elderly, and with and without taxes and transfers. This data table allows researchers to determine poverty rates in a given year without needing to download the historical SPM public-use data files.
Historical SPM Research
Learn about the Center’s historical SPM work on tracking poverty and the changing role of social policy over time.