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.
Probably it is possible to go on endlessly sketching the form of an ideal human being, but as he is drawn more and more precisely, he less and less resembles anyone in the real world. And yet there are normal people. Perhaps it is easier to say what is not meant by normal than what is. Normal is not average.If someone could be average in every conceivable way, he could still be disturbed, although a perfectly average man is no more real than someone who is perfectly normal.Conversely, being atypical does not mean someone is sick.A man may still be normal who every day sleeps only five hours, works an extra full-time job, and takes three showers. But knowing just how someone deviates from the average is important in understanding him, for three reasons:ormal is not average. If someone could be average in every conceivable way, he could still be disturbed, although a perfectly average man is no more real than someone who is perfectly normal. Conversely, being atypical does not mean someone is sick.