The Legal Services Corporation (LSC) is seeking comment on a proposal to update the statutory requirement that LSC use poverty population data from the most recent decennial census for distribution of most LSC funding for legal services for the poor throughout the United States.

Current law requires use of decennial census data so that LSC can distribute basic field grants based on a per capita basis relative to the number of individuals in poverty within each LSC-designated geographic area. Because the 2010 decennial census did not provide information on the number of Americans in poverty in the fifty states and the District of Columbia, a change in current law is necessary.

Under the proposed change, the Bureau of the Census would determine the number of individuals in poverty in each LSC-designated geographic area using data other than the decennial census.

Additionally, the LSC proposal recommends phasing in the first funding redistribution over two years and redistributing funds every three years thereafter.

The deadline for comments is September 8 so that LSC may address this issue in the Fiscal Year 2013 budget cycle.

The request for comments was published in the Federal Register on August 9. Click here to read the Federal Register notice and related documents.

LSC, established by the Congress in 1974, operates as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation with the mission of ensuring the delivery of high-quality civil legal assistance to low-income Americans and promoting equal access to justice in the nation. To be eligible for LSC-funded services, individuals must be at or below 125 percent of the federal poverty guideline—$13,613 for an individual and $27,938 for a family of four.