10. 11. 12. 13. 14. One problem with the absolute approach to poverty is that there is no agreement as to which goods and services to include in the definition. In principle, a list of absolute necessities should change regularly over time. Under some relative definitions, poverty will persist as long as income inequality does. Under Roosevelt's definition, poverty has remained about the same since 1936. Fuchs has suggested defining poverty as income below one-half of the national median. Since income distribution and poverty are intrinsically related, they cannot be approached separately. The official government measure of poverty uses the relative approach to defining poverty. There is a firm basis for specifying what a family's minimum needs are. Since the specification of a poverty standard is an imprecise endeavor, it is a useless exercise. The best single indicator of a person's purchasing power over time is income. The poverty line was originally determined by taking the cost of a minimal food budget for a family and multiplying by 2. The poverty line is updated each year for rising prices but not for increasing standards of living. Most Americans believe that families really could get by on the govemment's definition of minimum needs if they tried hard. There were more poor people in America in 2005 than there were in 1965