According to a research paper on measuring poverty to be released by SMU Lien Centre for Social Innovation, the average household expenditure on basic needs of $1,250 a month for a four-person household determined by the Department of Statistics two years ago is the average spending on food, clothing and shelter for those living in a one- to two- room flat. Mr Yeoh Lam Keong, senior research fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), who helped to draft the upcoming paper, said that the invisibility could be due to the fact that poverty is largely made up of the working poor – people who work but earn very low wages, and the elderly poor – people who have earned little wages throughout their career and are now either retired or unemployed. Over time, the way poverty has been defined globally has evolved and there are now three broad methods - absolute, relative and subjective. This has led to new and more nuanced ways of measuring poverty, said Ms Sanushka Mudaliar, Senior Manager at SMU Lien Centre for Social Innovation.