Poverty in America: Trends and Explanations.

The article focuses on the conundrum of why the nonelderly poverty rate in the U.S. has failed to decline as the economy has expanded. The lack of improvement in the poverty rate reflects a weakened relationship between poverty and the macroeconomy. The authors find that the lack of improvement despite rising living conditions is due to the stagnant growth in median wages and increasing inequality. Holding all else equal, changes in female labor supply should have reduced poverty further, but an increase in the rate of female heads of families may have worked in the opposite direction.