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.
If youâre trying to measure someoneâs attitudes or behaviors, a Likert scale is one of the most popular (and reliable) ways to do so. A Likert scale measures attitudes and behaviors using answer choices that range from one extreme to another (for example, not at all likely to extremely likely).