The poverty threshold is an artificially low income level calculated on a multiplier of food cost. For example, for 2005 the poverty level of a family of two adults and two children under 18 was $19,806.

Below that level anywhere in the country, you are poor and therefore eligible for a variety of government programs. Above that level, you and your family are not counted among the poor.

Many scholars argue that a better estimate of family need would be a Self-Sufficiency Standard above which you would not be dependent on assistance programs. The standard would also be more sensitive to differential costs of various family compositions and communities.

Using such as standard (see Indiana Coalition on Housing and Homeless Issues website: http://www.ichhi.org ), the self-sufficiency standard for the same four-person family in Marion County would be $37,937. We can assume that those earning above the poverty threshold but below about $38,000 would be experiencing some level of need.

Indiana's poor have little confidence in the American Dream -- not when they struggle each day to put food on the table and to keep a roof over their heads and their children in school.We all have a stake in lowering in helping them escape poverty. We pay in higher insurance premiums when too many can't afford health care, in increased taxes to support overburdened social services, in the threat to public safety as crime rates rise, in a sluggish economy, and in an education system that fails too many students.These underlying symptoms of poverty are reflected in a report due out Tuesday, "Still on Shaky Ground 2006," from the Women's Fund of Central Indiana, a philanthropic organization that creates opportunities for women and girls in Central Indiana. It highlights problems with insufficient income, care giving, domestic violence and health issues. And on Page 2 of this section, the United Way of Central Indiana's Ellen Annala challenges all of us to make possible long-term change for people at risk of poverty by supporting the United Way's annual fund drive.Horizon House's Carter Wolf, the Indiana Coalition for Human Services' Patti O'Callaghan, and Katharine Byers, who heads Indiana University-Bloomington's social work program, examine the causes and effects of poverty in Indiana and offer suggestions on how to help our friends and neighbors who struggle each day to get by.

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