Annual California Poverty Estimates: Updated and Revised for 1960 - 2000.

The article presents annual estimates of the number of the poor in California for the years 1960-2000. The Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Commerce, estimates annual poverty for the nation and decennial poverty for subnational jurisdictions. However, it makes no estimates of annual poverty for individual states. Consequently, this project estimates annual counts of the poor for the years 1960 through 2000 for six segments of California's population-all residents, whites, blacks, Hispanics, the elderly and female headed householders. Recently, the author computed similar estimates, "Annual Estimates of California's Poor 1959 Through 1990," American Journal of Economics and Sociology." Interest generated from the state government, advocacy groups, and the news media warrants this follow-up study here census data for 1990 are incorporated, the methodology for creating estimates is refined, estimates are projected to the turn of the century, and errors in the estimates are calculated. The methodology employs both regression and graphic techniques. Benchmark points of reference are the official Census Bureau estimates of state poverty for the years 1960, 1970, 1976, 1980 and 1990-for each of the six population segments. Regressing the number poor against year measures a basic average relationship.