I am interested in determining the poverty level of subfamilies in a household. For subfamilies (individuals who are related to each other) that are unrelated to the household head (i.e., RELATED=1260), are poverty values calculated only based on a single individual’s income? For example, if a married couple subfamily (two individuals coded as in the same SUBFAM and SFTYPE=6) are both are RELATED=1260, will their poverty level be based on their combined income? In looking at a sample of data, it appears to be the case that POVERTY is based on their combined income and unrelated to anyone else in the household, but I wanted to confirm.
Thank you!
I should have tagged this #USA
In IPUMS USA, the values of the harmonized variable POVERTY are based on the family units defined in FAMUNIT. Individuals who are unrelated to the householder are assigned a POVERTY value based on summing the income of everyone in the household with a common value of FAMUNIT. In contrast, the original Census Bureau poverty variable treated everyone who is unrelated to the householder as individuals (not members of a family) for the purposes of poverty calculation.
There is one caveat, which is noted in the variable description for POVERTY:
… it is possible for individuals identified as being non-relatives of the head (RELATE) to be included in the primary family (FAMUNIT 1), based on family pointer information. However, because the POVERTY values for primary families in the 2000 Decennial and ACS/PRCS samples are published in the PUMS by the Census Bureau (see User Caution below) and the Census Bureau strictly excludes “non-relatives” (RELATED > 1100) from primary families, some individuals identified as FAMUNIT 1 by IPUMS USA will not have the same POVERTY value as the head of household. These individuals will instead have the single-person poverty calculation assigned to them by the Census Bureau.