MARK W. ROOSA,SHIYING DENG,RAJNI L. NAIR, AND GINGER LOCKHART BURRELL Arizona State University Measures for Studying Poverty in Family and Child Research Most family scholars take the concept of pov- erty for granted. The variety of ways people have chosen to define and measure this concept, however, often makes it difficult to interpret or compare research results. We review and cri- tique the ways that poverty has been measured in the family and child literatures as well as the measures that have been used to help under- stand variations in adaptation among those in poverty. In addition to reviewing more common measures, we include discussions of two new measures that have the potential to contribute to the literature on poverty: basic family bud- gets and social exclusion. In 2002, almost 35 million people in the United States, including over 12 million children, lived in families with incomes below the federal pov- erty line (U.S. Census Bureau, 2003). A star- tling 41% of this population was in severe poverty, living on less than one half of the pov- erty threshold. Such large numbers of people living in poverty in one of the most affluent countries in the world is a startling phenome- non. Family and child researchers, however, are concerned with the impact of poverty or of poli- cies about poverty on families and children. Although poverty might be seen as a simple, easily understood concept, researchers use a variety of methods to define poverty or to iden- tify families in poverty. When multiple mea- sures are used, it is difficult to interpret research results or to make comparisons across studies. Researchers rarely discuss issues inherent in these measures or alert readers to how the defi- nition of poverty used in one study differs from measures used in studies with which they are comparing results. Instead, most studies leave readers with the impression that all the methods of defining poverty or identifying families in poverty lead researchers to the same economi- cally homogenous population. The income cri- terion used in some definitions, however, is quite different from that in others. In addition, the uniform application of the most common definition will lead researchers to samples with somewhat different levels of impoverishment depending on the location of the study (i.e., rural vs. urban, geographic region). Those inter- ested in research on low-income families and children must be familiar with these and other issues that sometimes make interpretation of this research quite complicated. One purpose of this article is to review methods used to identify families or children in poverty. A clear understanding of these is criti- cal when designing and interpreting research on poor families. The literature is replete with re- views of the most commonly used of these measures, the U.S. poverty thresholds (e.g., Betson & Warlick, 1998; Brady, 2003; Brooks- Gunn, Klebanov, Liaw, & Duncan, 1995). Still, we seek to increase family and child scholars’ Department of Family and Human Development and the Program for Prevention Research, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85187-2502 (mark.roosa@asu.edu). Key Words: basic family budgets, economic pressure, hunger, income-to-needs ratio, poverty thresholds, social exclusion. Journal of Marriage and Family 67 (November 2005): 971–988 971