Ryan's Exhibition

A report from Isobel, who attended Ryan's Exhibition on statistical measures of American poverty.

Ryan's topic is poverty in the United States and how it is calculated. There is a national poverty line, which he thinks should be adjusted depending on where you live, since a house in one city might be a lot more expensive in another city.

Here is his formula.

Adjusted [Poverty] Line (AL) = Current Line * Correction Factor

Correction Factor = .2 (transportation) + .1 (food) + .3 (housing) + .1 (utilities) + .1 (health) + .2 (misc.)

Note: factors (food, health, etc.) are defined by city against the national average, which is known here as 1.

Then, he conducted an activity, where attendees used his formula to calculate the poverty line for particular cities (Houston, Chicago, Phoenix and Indianapolis).