Is there one national poverty line or do they adjust it by state/urban area? I imagine it takes a lot more money to get out of poverty in NYC than say Dallas.
The Census Bureau publishes two measures, the Poverty Measure and the Supplemental Poverty Measure.
The Poverty Measure is based on the relationship between pretax income and nationwide food costs adjusted for family size. So basically on the income side, it includes market income and pretax government cash like social security or unemployment compensation, but it doesn't include in-kind benefits like Medicare or food stamps, or post-tax credits like the EITC. On the cost side, it takes into account nationwide food inflation, but there is no regional variation based on housing cost. So the "poverty line" is the same nationwide.
The Supplemental Poverty Measure is more complex on both sides. It takes into account post-tax transfers and in-kind benefits as well as pretax income, and on the cost side is not just food but a four-part amalgam of food, clothing, shelter and utilities, which takes into account regional differences in housing costs.
The Supplemental Poverty Measure is generally released a couple of months after the Poverty Measure, since it is more complicated to calculate. It is intended to be more realistic in some ways, though the added complication sometimes brings some controversy about whether the various parts are being weighted correctly.
