Poverty in the Unite States refers to people living in poverty in the U.S. Within the U.S. the most common measure of poverty is the "poverty line" set by the U.S. government. The official poverty threshold is adjusted for inflation using the consumer price index. Poverty in the United States is cyclical in nature with roughly 12% to 15% living below the federal poverty line at any given point in time, and roughly 40% falling below the poverty line at some time within a 10 year time span. While there remains some controversy of whether or not the official poverty over or understates poverty, the United States has some of the highest absolute and relative pre-transfer, and the highest post-transfer, poverty rates in the developed world. Overall, the U.S. ranks 16th on the Human Poverty Index.