Elderly poverty rates are much higher than the official measures
The supplemental poverty measure indicates that elderly poverty rates overall and at the state level are much higher than indicated by the official poverty measure. At the national level, this result is largely due to the fact that the supplemental measure deducts health expenses from income, while the official measure does not.
About one in ten individuals ages 65 and older (9%) have incomes below the poverty level using the official measure, compared to about one in seven (15%) hen using the supplemental measure (see Figure 1). The difference between the measures is not as pronounced among non-elderly adults, and poverty rates among children are actually lower under the supplemental measure than they are under the official measure19 (although poverty rates are higher among children than seniors under both poverty measures, and considerably higher under the official poverty measure).
The share of elderly people with incomes under 200 percent of poverty is just over a third (34%) under the official measure, but nearly one-half (48%) under the supplemental measure. Conversely, a smaller share of seniors has incomes above 400 percent of the poverty threshold under the supplemental measure than under the official measure (19% compared to 32%).
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http://kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/a-state-by-state-snapshot-of-poverty-among-seniors/
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