recession of 2008, resulted in $35 billion in eco-
nomic losses annually, and will cause at least $1.7 
trillion in economic losses to the United States dur-
ing their lifetimes (First Focus, 2008). 
(19) Reducing poverty, especially child poverty, 
not only reduces costs for Federal, State, and local 
social services and benefits programs, but also in-
creases tax revenue at all levels of government (Chil-
dren’s Defense Fund, 2009). 
(20) The House of Representatives, on January 
22, 2008, has resolved that it is the sense of Con-
gress that the United States should set a national 
goal of cutting poverty in half over the next 10 
years. 
SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS. 
In this Act: 
(1) FEDERAL
AGENCY.—The term ‘‘Federal 
agency’’ means any executive department, Govern-
ment corporation, Government-controlled corpora-
tion, or other establishment in the executive branch 
of the Government (including the Executive Office of 
the President), or any independent regulatory agen-
cy. 
(2) POVERTY.—The term ‘‘poverty’’ means an 
income level and living standard associated with and 
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based on the official poverty measure as established 
and updated by the U.S. Census Bureau which es-
tablishes a threshold of minimum income necessary 
to achieve a standard of living free from deprivation 
of basic needs. 
(3) EXTREME POVERTY.—The term ‘‘extreme 
poverty’’ means having an income level or living 
standard at a level of extreme deprivation based on 
living with income below 50 percent of the Federal 
poverty line as established by the U.S. Census. 
(4) NEAR POVERTY.—The term ‘‘near poverty’’ 
means having a level of household income below 200 
percent of the Federal poverty line. 
(5) CHILD
POVERTY.—The term ‘‘child pov-
erty’’ means poverty which impacts those persons 
under 18 years of age. 
(6) DEPRIVATION.—The term ‘‘deprivation’’ 
means lacking some or all basic human needs. 
(7) DECENT
LIVING
STANDARD.—The term 
‘‘decent living standard’’ means the amount of an-
nual income that would allow an individual to live 
beyond deprivation at a safe and decent, but modest, 
standard of living. 
(8) ALTERNATIVE
POVERTY
MEASURES.—The 
term ‘‘alternative poverty measures’’ means meas-
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ures and indicators, other than the traditional in-
come based measure of poverty, which can provide a 
more detailed picture of the low-income and poverty 
stricken populations, such as the number of people 
who were kept above poverty by Government sup-
ports, the number of people who are poor due to 
medical expenses, child care, and work expenses, the 
rates of food insecurity, the number of people who 
are asset poor (with less than three months of in-
come saved), the number of disconnected youth, teen 
birth rates, participation rates in Federal anti-pov-
erty programs for all eligible populations, and the 
number of people who are unbanked. 
(9) REGIONAL
COSTS
OF
LIVING.—The term 
‘‘regional costs of living’’ means a measure of the 
differing costs of maintaining a given living standard 
in varying regional, geographic, urban or rural re-
gions. 
(10) ECONOMIC INSECURITY.—The term ‘‘eco-
nomic insecurity’’ means the inability of individuals 
and households to cope with routine adverse or cost-
ly life events and the lack of means to maintain a 
decent standard of living and to recover from the 
costly consequences of those events. 
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(11) ECONOMIC
STABILITY.—The term ‘‘eco-
nomic stability’’ means individuals and households 
have access to the means and support systems nec-
essary to effectively cope with adverse or costly life 
events and have the ability to effectively recover 
from the consequences of those events while main-
taining their standard of living or maintaining a de-
cent standard of living. 
(12) DIGITAL DIVIDE.—The term ‘‘digital di-
vide’’ means the gap between individuals, house-
holds, businesses and geographic areas at different 
socio-economic levels with regard to both their access 
information and communications technologies and 
including the imbalance both in physical access to 
technology and the resources, education and skills 
needed to effectively use computer technology and 
the Internet for a wide variety of activities. 
(13) OUTCOMES.—The term ‘‘outcomes’’ means 
change in the economic status, economic instability 
or economic security of an individual, household or 
other population which is attributable to a planned 
intervention, benefit, or service or series of interven-
tions, benefits, and services, regardless of whether 
such an intervention was intended to change such 
economic status. 
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(14) DISPARATE IMPACT.—The term ‘‘disparate 
impact’’ refers to the historic and ongoing impacts 
of the pattern and practice of discrimination in em-
ployment, education, housing, banking and nearly 
every other aspect of American life in the economy, 
society or culture that have an adverse impact on 
minorities, women, or other protected groups, re-
gardless of whether such practices were motivated by 
discriminatory intent. 
SEC. 4. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE FEDERAL INTERAGENCY 
WORKING GROUP ON REDUCING POVERTY. 
(a) ESTABLISHMENT
OF FEDERAL INTERAGENCY 
WORKING GROUP ON REDUCING POVERTY.—There is es-
tablished within the Department of Health and Human 
Services, a Federal Interagency Working Group on Reduc-
ing Poverty, which shall be chaired by the Secretary of 
Health and Human Services, and whose members shall be 
selected by their respective agency heads from the senior 
ranks of their agencies, which shall— 
(1) develop, within 180 days of enactment, a 
National Strategy to reduce the number of persons 
living in poverty in America in half within 10 years 
of the release of the 2012 Census report on Income, 
Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the 
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