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Houston Rep. Garcia joins critics of Trump plan to redefine poverty

June 19, 2019

Last month, the Trump administration said it intends to recalculate how poverty is determined in America when estimating the size of the nation's population of poor people.

The change would better reflect how inflation affects peoples' lives and enable the Census Bureau to more accurately count how many families have incomes so low that they fall beneath official poverty measures, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget.


U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, a first-term Democrat from Houston, believes that the rule, not yet completed, would have the damaging effect of reducing the number of low-income Americans eligible for government benefits.