Final answer:
The official poverty line was defined in 1963 due to the work of Mollie Orshansky, with thresholds based on the cost of a healthy diet becoming the U.S. statistical standard in 1969 during the War on Poverty. It has remained relatively consistent to enable comparisons over time.
Step-by-step explanation:
The official poverty line was defined for the first time in 1963 as part of a major government effort to assess and address economic disparity. This effort became known as the War on Poverty. The conception of the poverty line originated from the work of Mollie Orshansky, a member of the Social Security Administration.
Orshansky published an article titled "Children of the Poor" in the Social Security Bulletin, where she proposed that the poverty line be based on the cost of a healthy diet. By examining spending habits, Orshansky noted that families typically spent one third of their income on food. She then determined the poverty line by tripling the cost required for an economical food plan. This line helped identify those who lacked the income to meet basic living standards. Orshansky's poverty thresholds were adopted as the official statistical definition of poverty in the U.S. in 1969 during President Lyndon Johnson's administration.
Establishing a consistent poverty line has been crucial for governmental policy and for tracking economic conditions over time. The basic definition of the poverty line, overseen by statisticians at the U.S. Census Bureau, has remained relatively unchanged to allow for reliable comparisons of poverty rates across different time periods.