“The poverty rate is a key economic indicator often used by policy makers to evaluate current economic conditions within communities and to make comparisons between sectors of the population. It measures the percentage of people whose income fell below the poverty threshold. Federal and state governments use poverty estimates to allocate funds to local communities. Local communities often use these estimates to identify the number of individuals or families eligible for various programs. This report uses the 2012 and 2013 American Community Survey (ACS) 1-year data to compare poverty rates and the number of people in poverty for the nation, states and the District of Columbia, and large metropolitan areas. The report also examines the proportion of people by selected income-to-poverty ratios for the same geographic levels.”