One major reason to believe that the official poverty reports understate the actual poverty problem is that consumption is considered as a measure of poverty rather than the use of incomes which makes some of the poverty in the U.S. disappear. O people can feel poor even if they have adequate incomes. the high cost of living in major metropolitan areas is not adequately captured by the official poverty threshold income. O the official poverty threshold incomes are set too high. Need help? Review these concept resources.