27 Oct As we have discussed, the current Federal Poverty Limit, based in decades’ old assumptions and calculations, may not be keeping up with today’s realities

 As we have discussed, the current Federal Poverty Limit, based in decades’ old assumptions and calculations, may not be keeping up with today’s realities.  Your job for this assignment is to determine what YOU think the Federal Poverty Limit should be TODAY for a family of four. We’ll call our family of four the Jones family.  It includes two adult parents, David and Deanna, and two children, 7-year-old Jason, and 12-year-old Allison, who live here in New Haven.

 Your determination for the New & Improved Federal Poverty Limit must be based on a “market basket” of the basic necessities that you think the Joneses realistically need in order to get by these days, keeping in mind the WHO definition of what health is.

 Your market basket for this family must include items from each of the categories in the box below, though you are free to add additional categories if you think they are necessary.

Food Recreation

Housing Education

Apparel Communication

Transportation Household Necessities

Medical Care Other Goods & Services

 Your food budget must be based on sound dietary recommendations, preferably those posted by the USDA, which is to say that you can’t tell me that the Joneses can live off of nothing but bread & water for a year.  Instead, you must use a nutritionally-complete, age-appropriate diet that includes portions of vegetables, starches, proteins, etc – this is public health, after all.

 For each of the other categories above, you need to tell me what some of the items are that fall under each category. For example, in terms of communication, does a family of four need a landline phone?  Do they need 0 or 2 or 4 mobile phones?  Do they need an internet connection at home?  In terms of healthcare, think about monthly premiums, deductibles or co-payments? If they don’t have insurance, think about all of the typical out of pocket expenses associated with getting healthcare.  Don’t just guess – do the research!  Can a family of 4 live in a studio apartment?  So long as the items you come up with are realistic, you do not have to justify their inclusion in your market basket, instead you may simply list them.

 Once you have determined what your market basket / list of basic necessities are, do some research to find what the cost is for these things here in Connecticut. You MUST cite your work in terms of the costs.  Remember, the Federal Poverty Limit is an ANNUAL cost, so give the dollar amount that the Joneses need for the entire year for each item.  For example, if you determine that they need $X per month in rent, remember to multiply that by 12 for the annual cost.

            Add up all of these market basket costs in order to create our New Federal Poverty Limit.

Please use the chart on the next page to organize these items and costs. If necessary, feel free to make any of the boxes larger in order to accommodate additional items.  In order to make the chart easier to read, you can use footnotes instead of typical APA parenthetical citations.

Category Items ANNUAL Cost $

Food $

Housing $

Apparel $

Transportation $

Education $

Recreation $

Medical Care $

Communication $

Household Necessities $

Other Goods & Services $

TOTAL / New Federal Poverty Limit $

References