Should the poverty line be raised to $140k?

Recently, Substack has been the home to two viral stories: One centers around a couple of narcissistic journalists with questionable ethics, and the other delves into a more Purse-appropriate topic, the U.S. poverty line. We’ll leave the salacious journalist story to the many media reporters out there. Let’s talk about poverty. (Fun!)

The Sunday before Thanksgiving, Michael W. Green, a financial executive and author of the newsletter Yes, I Give a Fig, wrote an essay with the provocative headline, “Part 1: My Life is a Lie.” In the piece he presents an argument that the formula the U.S. government uses to calculate the poverty line is grossly outdated.

In 2024, the poverty line for a family of four in the U.S. was $31,200. Green argues that if you really take a hard look at what it costs to support a family, including housing, transportation, child care, and health care, the real poverty line should be $140,000.

Needless to say, people had a lot of strong feelings about Green’s suggestion. A bunch of friends flagged the original story for me, and Green’s idea was covered everywhere from The Washington Post to The Free Press.1 In the popular Noahopinion newsletter, Noah Smith, an economist and former Bloomberg columnist, wrote a rebuttal, “The ‘$140,000 poverty line’ is very silly,” which pokes some holes in the math that Green used to support his argument.

Green’s essay brings up some interesting points but ultimately nothing new. A lot of us have been yelling about the same issues for a long time: Everything is getting more expensive, and our salaries aren’t keeping up with the rising costs. (Green even acknowledges that in his piece.) The rebuttals to his essay are mostly long-winded, but a few brought up some of the problems I also had with his argument, namely that I’m not sure that he understands what poverty is. And to be fair, as I wrote this essay, I found myself googling the definition. Not going to lie: It’s complicated.

But after spending a morning hopping between all these essays, my big takeaway is: Who cares? Maybe I’m getting cynical in my old age, but I seriously doubt this essay is going to do anything to actually encourage the federal government to reconsider the measurements they use to calculate the poverty line.

In truth, I find these kinds of debates tiresome. It’s mind-numbing when finance types throw around a bunch of boring stats that are somehow supposed to illustrate what it feels like to be a middle-class American in 2025. On one hand, we have a very white rich man saying that if you earn $140k a year, you’re essentially living in poverty. And on the other, you have another very rich white man saying that our concerns about the rising cost of living are unfounded. There’s never any nuance to these conversations, and there are certainly no real solutions presented. As usual, it’s not the people who are doing the work of actually helping people who are getting the attention they deserve, but rather some random blogger with a half-baked theory.

When I first heard about Green’s essay, I immediately thought of a Home Economics we ran last fall featuring a family of three living outside of Boston. The couple—a teacher and a carpenter—were earning a combined income of $150,000. They have a toddler and were spending $1,200 a month on child care. (It’s worth noting that Massachusetts wins the dubious honor of having the highest child care costs in this country, and even though this couple spends nearly 10% of their income on this expense, they’re paying less than many families in their state.)

If we were to accept Green’s proposal, this family would be living just above the poverty line.2 Sure, they feel some financial stress, and they’re particularly worried about affording retirement—an expense that Green barely even mentions in his piece. At the end of the month, they don’t have a lot of extra room in the budget for superfluous spending. But I don’t think anyone reading their story would say the couple is poor. They are homeowners. They were able to pay off their student loans within a reasonable amount of time. They paid for upgrades to their home, like an induction oven and solar panels. They have an emergency savings account and retirement funds. Their only debt is their mortgage.

Some might argue that they’re lucky—an exception not the rule. Others would point to the many compromises they’ve had to make along the way. Perhaps they would even hold them up as an example of a fiscally responsible family who doesn’t waste their money on lattes and avocado toast—you know, those frivolous expenses that are preventing the middle class from getting ahead.

Let’s look at another family of three—this one from Louisville, Kentucky—that we featured earlier this year in Home Ec. They earn a similar income ($161,500) and have a similar monthly childcare bill ($1,095) as the Massachusetts family. But their finances look pretty different. They are renters with some credit card and student loan debt. Still, even though they are living paycheck to paycheck, I don’t think anyone would describe them as poverty stricken either. Despite the tight budget, they managed to take a couple of trips last year.

Green may have been well meaning in his essay trying to illustrate a point that many of us have been screaming about for years now, but ultimately, I think he missed the mark. Those of us regular people who aren’t financial gurus or business journalists3 or politicians know that the economic vibes are off right now. We see it firsthand when we go to the grocery store or shop for a new car, or when our employer raises health insurance premiums but not our salaries (again). We don’t need experts to throw around a bunch of stats and complicated theories to prove our lived experience. But we also know that a family of four living on $140,000 annually are not poor. Squeezed, yes. Struggling to make ends meet, sure. But not poverty stricken. And I imagine many people would be offended by Green’s suggestion that they are poor.

Part of Green’s argument for raising the poverty line so dramatically is so more Americans can have access to some of the government benefits that are reserved only for the very poor. If wages are not going to keep up with the cost of living, it would seem that these subsidies are necessary. But the party in power is cutting these types of benefits, not increasing them. Politicians on both sides of the aisle keep trying to argue that the affordability crisis is a lie4 and the economy is actually very good. Like Green and Smith, they keep pointing to the stats while not actually listening to the public outcry.

I hope the stories we tell at The Purse are an antidote to this kind of noise. We have a lot of work to do to make the Home Economics we share more diverse and representative of the many experiences of women (and their families) across the U.S. But if people like Green and Smith really want to understand the economic reality of Americans, they need to stop regurgitating stats and start listening to real people. I know some women they can talk to if they’re interested.

-Lindsey

Affordability in the News

• Funnily enough, back in August, then New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo argued back that someone earning $142,000 a year—the salary that his opponent Zohran Mamdani made as a state assemblyman—is “very rich.” The New York Times story on this comment suggests otherwise. (But it didn’t discuss the family support I imagine both men have received.)
• Alicia wrote some stories back in 2023 about how a six-figure salary isn’t necessarily enough for millennials to feel well-off (though they certainly didn’t feel poverty stricken). Many other outlets have since written similar takes.
• Kyla Scanlon is a Gen Z economist who recently delved into why prosperity feels so alien to so many in the U.S.
• Pew Research released a big study last year on the state of the American middle class. Lots of interesting data!
• In all the essays I read in response to Green’s $140k poverty line suggestion, most acknowledged the child care affordability crisis, but none had any solutions. This week, Marketplace looked at how more families are deciding that one parent should quit their job (or cut back their hours) because they can’t afford the cost of daycare.
• I didn’t find a lot of takes by women on this topic, but I appreciated Allison Tait’s essay. Also, I can’t help myself, but I think the “upper poor” meme is very funny.

What Else We’re Talking About

• I got so much out of economist Corinne Low’s new book, Having It All: What Data Tells Us About Women’s Lives and Getting the Most Out of Yours. We interviewed Low this week for a meta edition of Division of Labor, and I’m loving all of the comments on that newsletter. -Alicia
• I absolutely love NPR’s annual “Books We Love” list. Such a fun way to find new reads (and potential holiday gifts). -Lindsey
• This interview with Alicia Kennedy in Elan Ullendorff’s newsletter Escape the Algorithm offers a lot of food for thought about the meaningful work that algorithms overlook. -Alicia

On Our Radar

• I have an article in Kiplinger about the growing body of research from behavioral finance experts that identifies the kinds of presents that people typically like best—and the mental quirks that prevent us from buying them. I learned so much writing this! -Alicia
• Thank you to everyone who shared their birthday party expenses with me for my latest Yahoo story! You can read it here! -Lindsey
• I also wrote about how to tell if it’s time to quit your dream job, with insight from Annie Duke’s book Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away and LinkedIn career expert Catherine Fisher. -Alicia
• I need a few more people to share their holiday gifting budget for my next Yahoo story. I’d love a few big spenders! (It’s anonymous!) If you’re interested in sharing, fill out the form here. -Lindsey

Stat of the Week

Best Money We Spent This Week

• In September, I mentioned buying the Bonne Maman Advent calendar. Well, it’s finally time to start unboxing my little jars of jams and spreads, and I couldn’t be happier. Talk about delayed gratification! -Alicia
• Early readers (and close friends) will know that I’ve been trying to buy a new sofa for a while now. I finally bit the bullet in late September, and it was delivered this week. I’m in love! And I was happy to tip the deliverymen for dropping it off on the grossest, rainiest Tuesday. $40. -Lindsey