Important Facts for Utah Population Characteristics: Poverty, All Persons
Definition
The percentage of persons living in households whose income is at or below the federal poverty threshold.Numerator
Estimated number of persons living in households whose income is at or below the federal poverty threshold as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau.Denominator
Estimated number of persons in the population.Data Interpretation Issues
Poverty status is determined by comparing annual income to a set of dollar values called thresholds that vary by family size, number of children, and age of householder. If a family's before tax money income is less than the dollar value of their threshold, then that family and every individual in it are considered to be in poverty. For people not living in families, poverty status is determined by comparing the individual's income to his or her threshold. The poverty threshold for a family of four including two children was $27479 in 2021. Poverty thresholds are updated annually to allow for changes in the cost of living using the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U). They do not vary geographically.Why Is This Important?
Poverty takes into account both income and family size, and has both immediate and long-lasting effects on health. Income provides an assessment of the financial resources available to individual persons or families for basic necessities (e.g., food, clothing, and health care) to maintain or improve their well-being. Persons living in poverty are worse off than persons in more affluent households for many of the indicators tracked by the Utah Department of Health.Healthy People Objective SDOH-3.1:
Proportion of persons living in povertyU.S. Target: Not applicable; this measure is being tracked for informational purposes.