Topics: Economics and Personal Finances, Socioeconomic Class. 1  Richard Fry is a senior researcher focusing on economics and education at Pew Research Center. 2  Rakesh Kochhar is an associate director of research at Pew Research Center.
In the United States, the Census Bureau determines who is poor using an economic poverty measure, by calculating official poverty estimates using a set of dollar-value thresholds, or minimum amount of income needed to meet basic needs, that vary by family size and composition.
About 35 percent of welfare recipients have either major depression, post traumatic stress disorder, general anxiety disorder, alcohol dependence or drug dependence (Center for Poverty, Risk and Mental Health, University of Michigan, 1998).  Poverty is linked to poorer mental health (Adler et al., 1994).  People in the lowest strata of income, education, and occupation are about two to three times more likely than those in the highest strata to have a mental disorder (Holzer et al., 1986; Regier et al., 1993; Muntaner et al., 1998).