Remembering Mollie Orshansky—The Developer of the Poverty Thresholds

In a federal government career that lasted more than four decades, Mollie Orshansky worked for the Children's Bureau, the Department of Agriculture, the Social Security Administration, and other agencies. While working at the Social Security Administration during the 1960s, she developed the poverty thresholds that became the federal government's official statistical measure of poverty; her thresholds remain a major feature of the architecture of American social policy and are widely known internationally.

The Development and History of the Poverty Thresholds

Poverty Guidelines for 1992

The 1985 Federal Poverty Income Guidelines

The 1984 Federal Poverty Income Guidelines