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June 1989

Poverty in the 1980’s: are the poor getting poorer?

Mark S. Littman

Based in several different measures, poor persons were no closer to their respective poverty thresholds in 1986 than at the beginning of the decade. This article addresses the issue of whether or not it is demonstrable that the poor are worse off now, in the aggregate, than they were at the beginning of the 1980's (and, where possible, since 1959).

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