There have been some international studies looking at the relative well-being of--you're right--low-income people in the United States versus low-income people in Canada and Europe. Often, though, it's not only a question of purchasing power, but also of what kind of access low-income people in those countries have to public goods, which are services and benefits that aren't captured in income statistics. Certainly from the research with which I'm familiar about the U.S. and Canada, low-income Canadians are in a relatively better position than low-income Americans, given the comparative nature of our welfare state and access to public goods, particularly access to public health care. I think that's correct.
How you take account of that really then becomes a methodological question, how you take account of access to public goods, resources, in your calculation of poverty measurement. Many methodologies have been devised for that.