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DEFINITION OF “FAMILY”
PREVIOUSLY PROVIDED IN GUIDELINES
Family. A family is a group
of two or more persons related by birth, marriage, or
adoption who live together; all such related persons
are considered as members of one family. For instance,
if an older married couple, their daughter and her husband
and two children, and the older couple's nephew all
lived in the same house or apartment; they would all
be considered members of a single family.
Unrelated individual. An unrelated
individual is a person (other than an inmate of an institution)
who is not living with any relatives. An unrelated individual
may be the only person living in a house or apartment,
or may be living in a house or apartment (or in group
quarters such as a rooming house) in which one or more
persons also live who are not related to the individual
in question by birth, marriage, or adoption. Examples
of unrelated individuals residing with others include
a lodger, a foster child, a ward, or an employee.
Household. As defined by the
Census Bureau for statistical purposes, a household
consists of all the persons who occupy a housing unit
(house or apartment), whether they are related to each
other or not. If a family and an unrelated individual,
or two unrelated individuals, are living in the same
housing unit, they would constitute two family units
(see next item), but only one household. Some programs,
such as the Food Stamp Program and the Low-Income Home
Energy Assistance Program, employ administrative variations
of the ““household”” concept
in determining income eligibility. A number of other
programs use administrative variations of the ““family””
concept in determining income eligibility. Depending
on the precise program definition used, programs using
a ““family”” concept would generally
apply the poverty guidelines separately to each family
and/or unrelated individual within a household if the
household includes more than one family and/or unrelated
individual.
Family Unit. ““Family
unit”” is not an official U.S. Census Bureau
term, although it has been used in the poverty guidelines
Federal Register notice since 1978. As used here, either
an unrelated individual or a family (as defined above)
constitutes a family unit. In other words, a family
unit of size one is an unrelated individual, while a
family unit of two/three/etc. is the same as a family
of two/ three/etc.
If the definition of family provided above is used,
it must be interpreted to include college students as
follows: Students, regardless of their residence, who
are supported by their parents or others related by
birth, marriage, or adoption are considered to be residing
with those who support them.
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