By Tara Mancini

Everyone loves a good infographic, and here is a pretty nifty one from Stateline that visualizes the difference between the official poverty rate and the supplemental poverty measure for all 50 states and D.C. Readers can toggle between three different hover maps:

• The three-year average (2010-2012) of the official poverty rate for all fifty states and D.C., which ranges from a low of 7.6% to a high of 21.3 %, indicates that about half of the states fall into the mid-to-upper part of that range.

• The three-year average of the supplemental poverty measure, which ranges from 8.6% to 23.8%, indicates that the majority of states are in the lower half of that range.

• The difference between the official and supplemental rates, which ranges from -4.6 to 7.3 percentage points, reveals that for most states, the supplemental rate is lower than the official poverty rate. However, for about a fifth of the states the supplemental rate is much higher than the official rate. California and New Jersey having the largest differences, partially due to the high cost of housing.

I also couldn’t help but notice that a number of states in the South (FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TX) that are rejecting the Medicaid expansion are also among those states with poverty rates above the median, regardless of which measure is being used. This point is particularly interesting, because the supplemental poverty measure does take into account medical out of pocket (MOOP) costs and research has shown that MOOP costs can place a significant burden on a family income. And for the uninsured, that burden is usually higher than it is for the insured.

About the Supplemental Poverty Measure: The supplemental poverty measure was created with the intent to get a more comprehensive picture of one’s resources, and so it takes into account most non-cash government benefits (although not public health insurance) plus the cost of necessities, including taxes. The supplemental measure does not replace the official poverty measure. My colleague Martha Heberlein wrote a more detailed description of the measure in an earlier blog post.