Across the Mountain West, housing costs rose by more than 20% from April of last year to this year.

If the government incorporated the impacts of these costs on families of various sizes and compositions, we would get “a much more realistic measure of poverty,” Brennan said.

When these factors are taken into the account, a considerable number of people slip through the social safety net. For example, the Colorado Center on Law and Policy found that the potential number of people in Colorado living below the poverty line in 2019 rose from 9% to 26% when accounting for the costs of housing, health care, child care and transportation.

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