Author of the Poverty Thresholds
It was while she was working at the U.S. Children’s Bureau that Orshansky began taking graduate courses. At various times between 1936– 1937 and 1960, she took ourses in economics and statistics at the U.S. Department of Agriculture Graduate School and American University. From January 1942 to March 1943, Orshansky took job as a statistician for the New York City Department of Health, working on a survey of the incidence and therapy of pneumonia.
Talking about her government career, Orshansky once commented, “I basically always worked with women, except when I was in the war agencies [the National War Labor Board during World War II and the Wage Stabilization Board during the Korean War].” During World War II, in particular, large numbers of men left civilian jobs to
serve in the military. As a result, a number of female workers were able to get jobs that would not have been open to them under ‘normal’ circumstances. Describing the situation for female federal workers, Dorothy Rice, a colleague of Orshansky’s, later said, “Any female that had anything on the ball really did very well during the war. All the men went to the war and we had to carry on.”
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