Official poverty lines predominantly focus on the ability of individuals and households to gain access to some minimal level of income, on the premise that such access is sufficient to meet basic material needs. The Levy Institute Measure of Time and Income Poverty (LIMTIP) is designed to take account of the fact that the daily reproduction of household members also requires that some amount of time be dedicated to necessary (unpaid) household production activities. Just as some households fail to gain access to sufficient income, the LIMTIP measures the extent to which households may fail to meet their basic household production requirements for lack of time (or the money to purchase market substitutes).
