Standard Food Basket Variant

The Standard Food Basket (SFB) is an absolute poverty line (below which people are considered poor), based on the cost of a basket of goods that represents the minimum level of consumption to survive. There are different variants of the SFB in poverty literature. In its narrowest sense, it is based on a basket of food that provides the minimum calorie intake for survival. In a broader sense, it allows for the fact that families consume goods other than essential food items. As a way to take into account other costs that must be covered, an estimate of the Engel coefficient (the proportion of income spent on food) is used to derive the poverty line. There are also studies combining the two methods. Typically, the ...