The Level and Trend of Poverty in the United States, 1939-1979

By Christine Ross, Sheldon Danziger and Eugene Smolensky. Published in Demography, Vol. 24, No. 4 (Nov., 1987), pp. 587-600.

"Abstract

A detailed record of the number and characteristics of persons in poverty is available since 1959. This paper provides measures for 1939 and 1949 that correspond as closely as possible to the official poverty statistics. Poverty, as officially measured, fell from 40.5 percent of all persons in 1949 to 13.1 percent in 1979, declining most among the elderly and least among female-headed households. We estimate the effects on the aggregate poverty rate of changes between 1940 and 1980 in the distribution of the population by selected demographic characteristics of household heads and by the employment status of head and spouse. Some changes, such as the increasing proportion of two-earner families, were poverty reducing, whereas others were poverty increasing."

See also Poverty in the United States by Gwendolyn Mink & Alice M. O'Connor. Click here to see inside the book. If you click on the first picture, the numbers are clearer. (Hat tips to commenters Jason Wall and Todd Kreider at this post by Scott Sumner Do poverty programs reduce poverty? Here is a table from Mink & O'Connor's book: