Topics: Economics and Personal Finances, Socioeconomic Class. 1  Richard Fry is a senior researcher focusing on economics and education at Pew Research Center. 2  Rakesh Kochhar is an associate director of research at Pew Research Center.
In the United States, the Census Bureau determines who is poor using an economic poverty measure, by calculating official poverty estimates using a set of dollar-value thresholds, or minimum amount of income needed to meet basic needs, that vary by family size and composition.
You are not poor, you are just lower middle class. The Lower Middle Class has enough money for food and clothes from Wal-Mart. The poor need to be thirfty in their spending habits(like not getting all of the ensential foods or like getting used clothes that don't look brand new).