Posted on 03/12/2010 10:42:28 AM PST by AJKauf
The median income is the point at which 50% of people earn less, 50% more. The median household income in the United States is roughly $50,000. Half of all households make more than this, half less. Suppose, in their enlightened beneficence, our leaders decide to award every household an extra $1,000 a year that will be counted toward their income. (In the spirit of these times, never mind where the money comes from.)
The median income would then be $51,000. So how many households would have incomes below this number? You guessed it! Half, it would still be 50%. The proportion less than the median does not change with the addition or subtraction of any constant amount.
Therefore, although it should be as obvious as the sky is blue, a politician should know that it is impossible — not unlikely, but impossible — to eliminate poverty, if by “poverty” he means income less than the median.
This is just as true if we change the percentile from the 50th (which is the median) to the, say, 25th — sometimes called the first quartile. The 25th percentile is the point at which 25% of the people earn less and 75% earn more.
If “poverty” is defined as earning less than 75% of other people (or 60%, or whatever number you like) then the poor will always be with us and there is nothing anybody can do to change this. Omnipotence itself cannot change this.
Yet President Obama thinks he can.
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(Excerpt) Read more at pajamasmedia.com ...
Fuzzy Math Werks fer him.
The Democrats are predicated on the ‘need’ to redistribute income, so this is an attempt to always make sure they are ‘needed’.
To the Left, poverty is solved only when we all make the same amount. Of course, the elite will have "control" of more resources, but they won't technically "own" them.
No he doesn't--he's just lying about his ability to do something to fool those people who are too stupid to figure it out for themselves.
Institutionalizing class warfare. This thing doesn’t measure poverty, it’s measuring economic inequality. There will always be differences and that’s exactly what drives people to do better. Now Zero wants to corrupt that incentive too.
We’ve been dealing with a percentage based test for most poverty calcluations for as long as I can remember. What is the true innovation here? I keep hearing about this but don’t get it. I remember being frosted about this in college in the ‘80s when I learned this was how they did it.
I think not.
Poverty in the united states is not a function of statistics.
It is a class warfare leftist political construct.
the fact that the cultural stigma against accepting food stamps or free school lunches seems to have disappeared makes this a much bigger problem
You just have to be patient. As 0baMao’s policies start to take full effect a person making $80k a year will be poor.
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