Statistics Canada's socio-economic databases, particularly the Survey of Household Spending to determine the cost of a list of household necessities. The list includes food, shelter, clothing, health care, personal care, essential furnishings, transportation and communication, laundry, home insurance, and miscellaneous; it assumes that education is provided freely to all residents of Canada. This is calculated for various communities across Canada and adjusted for family size. With this information, he determines the proportion of Canadian households that have insufficient income to afford those necessities. Based on his basic needs poverty threshold, the poverty rate in Canada, the poverty rate has declined from about 12% of Canadian households to about 5% since the 1970s. This is in sharp contrast to the results of Statistic Canada, Conference Board of Canada, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and UNESCO reports using the relative poverty measure considered to the most useful for advanced industrial nations like Canada, which Sarlo rejects. OECD and UNICEF rate Canada's poverty rate much higher using a relative poverty threshold. Statistics Canada's LICO, which Sarlo also rejects, also result in higher poverty rates. According to a 2008 report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the rate of poverty in Canada, is among the highest of the OECD member nations, the world's wealthiest industrialized nations. There is no official government definition and therefore, measure, for poverty in Canada. However, Dennis Raphael, author of Poverty in Canada: Implications for Health and Quality of Life reported that the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Canadian poverty researchers find that relative poverty is the "most useful measure for ascertaining poverty rates in wealthy developed nations such as Canada." In its report released the Conference Board United States According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, an individual who makes $12,760 a year is considered below the poverty line. This amount is enough to cover living and transportation payments, bills, food, and clothing. In the United States, 13.1 percent of the population are reported to fall below the poverty level. Government programs SNAP The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, (formerly known as the Food Stamp Program) distributes food vouchers to households with incomes that fall within 130% of the federal poverty threshold. They support approximately 40 million people, including low income workers, unemployed citizens,