An Inventory of Poverty Lines for Latin America and the Caribbean: 1985-1997

Date
Oct 1998
The tables in this document present an inventory of some of the available poverty lines for all IDB member countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. The listed poverty lines are expressed as per capita monthly amounts of nominal local currency and are estimated based on the reference (fieldwork) period of the survey to which they apply. For example, Mexico's INEGI poverty line for 1994 is given in pesos for the 4th quarter of 1994. The only exceptions are the IDB/Poverty Targeted Investments (PTI) poverty lines, which are estimated by using the yearly average of the general consumption price index so that their reference period is mid-year. The appendix presents a more detailed explanation of how the IDB/PTI poverty lines are estimated. In order to review the origin of the rest of the lines, the reader is referred to their original sources, which are listed after each table. All sources are included as footnotes to the tables.