In the seven countries with significant drops in poverty levels, labour income accounted for at least three quarters of the variation in total per capita income. Transfers (public and private, including pensions and retirement benefits) and other income (capital income, imputed rent, and others) also helped bring the poverty rate down, albeit to a lesser degree. The discrepancy is due basically to the fact that the price deflator used by the Institute to adjust the indigence line —which reflects the variation in the prices of the specific products that make up the basic consumption basket— rose less than the deflator used by ECLAC, which reflects changes in food inflation and is therefore composed differently. The discrepancy is due to minor methodological differences related to the calculation of aggregate income and the value of the lines used. Changes in demographic factors, labour markets, the overall economic climate and institutional responses to poverty, along with falling poverty rates, could have gradually reshaped the profile of persons living in need. For analytical purposes, the poor population is divided into two groups: the indigent and the non-indigent poor.