One cost-of-living indicator shows that a salary of $40,000 in Santa Barbara, California, is equivalent to $14,000 in Wichita, Kansas. This is primarily because of the cost of housing, which is much less expensive in Wichita. What does this difference say about how the federal government calculates poverty?

Options to the Question:

a. It highlights something the poverty line shows us: that poverty is connected to the local cost of living, reflected in the differences in rates of poverty in different parts of the country.

b. It shows that the poverty line is more or less accurate, because it has been recalibrated to take into account housing costs.

c. It points to a flaw in the way the government calculates the poverty line, as the standard is uniformly applied without regard to regional differences.

d. It points to a flaw in the way the government calculates the poverty line, as it proves there are far more poor people in the Midwest.

C. It points to a flaw in the way the government calculates the poverty line, as the standard is uniformly applied without regard to regional differences.

Explanation:

There's individual differences according to regions on the country. Hence, the poverty line should be calculated for each of those regions based on their characteristics rather than using a standard that would give a misrepresentation of information due to data like shown in the question. Poverty line is the minimum level of income accepted as acceptable in a particular country. But in this case, it does not account for variations in cost of living in different regions in that country. As some regions generally have high cost of living than the others and thus will draw up a higher poverty line index. So these variations should be accounted for rather than just using a single standard uniformly applied.