In America poverty is absolutely relative

John Lalor
BrookesNews.Com
Monday 21 February 2005

The methodology by which both national and international agencies produce “poverty” statistics is questionable, to say the least. There are many ways in which the debate is constructed, but the main issue is how to define poverty. For a start, are the researchers talking about relative poverty, or absolute poverty?

The Other Side, who describe themselves as “an ecumenical Christian ministry,” give the background for a vital debate — that, regardless of our material wealth in the 21st Century, “poverty” refuses to go away:

On his final journey toward Jerusalem, Jesus stops in Bethany to eat at the home of Simon, a leper. A woman enters with an alabaster jar of expensive ointment; she breaks the jar and pours the ointment on his head. Her gesture invokes the fury of some present. The ointment was worth a year's wage, they grumble. It could have been sold, and the money given to the poor.

A single line of Jesus’ reply has been scissored out to become a classic apologetic for poverty: "The poor you will always have with you" (Mark 14:3-9).

Like the differing responses by ideologically opposed newspapers to a political speech, there are two ways to view Jesus’s reply. While this Christian group see it as a throwaway remark used by people disinterested in the fate of the “poor”, others see it as a semantic solution to the absolute vs relative debate.

Simply, the latter sees the whole concept of poverty has been corrupted to the point where the perpetual “poverty crisis” is the raison-d’être of advocate groups. Fuelled by dubious statistics, and egocentric short-term memory for times past (i.e. when true poverty was rife), most accept these reports.

Writing in the Jewish World Review, economist Walter Williams cites the research done by Robert Rector, a senior policy analyst at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation. Rector has sifted through figures produced by the US Department of Commerce, Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Department of Energy, producing an article titled The Myth of Widespread American Poverty.*

Here is a brief overview of Rector’s findings (based on 1995 figures):

(i) 41% of all “poor” households owned their own homes (average size: three bedrooms, one-and-a-half bathrooms; with garage and a porch or patio);

(ii)Three-quarters of a million “poor” owned homes worth over $150,000 (some with Jacuzzis and pools);

(iii) The average “poor” American has one-third more living space than the average Japanese, 25% more than the average Frenchman, 40% more than the average Greek and four times more than the average Russian. (Hence, were the American “poor” to purchase a house of the same capacity as these foreign counterparts, they would have a minimum of 25% additional spending ability for other items.);

(iv) 70% of “poor” households own a car — 27% own two or more cars;

(v) 97% have a colour television — nearly half own two or more televisions.

(vi) The “poor” people are more likely to be overweight than higher-income people (more room for State intervention there). The average consumption of proteins, vitamins and minerals is virtually the same for poor as middle-income children.

Further, Williams explains,

The Census Bureau** does a grossly poor job measuring poverty for several reasons. First, it looks at only current income and ignores assets. Thus, a family of four living in a $300,000 house with $1 million dollars in the bank, as far as the Census Bureau is concerned, is poor if for some reason its income was less than $16,404 in 1997.

The Census Bureau also misses income. In 1995, the Census Bureau claimed that the lowest income fifth of households had an average income of $8,350. In the same year, the Department of Labor's consumer expenditure survey showed that the same lowest fifth of households spent $14,607.

And, for those who are stuck in genuine poverty: Are they damned to live a life of servitude? Of course not. Writing in TownHall.com, Walter Williams explains:

There's considerable income mobility in [the US]. According to IRS tax data, 85.8 percent of tax filers in the bottom fifth in 1979 had moved on to a higher quintile, and often to the top quintile, by 1988. Income mobility goes in the other direction as well. Of the people who were in the top 1 percent of income earners in 1979, over half, or 52.7 percent, were gone by 1988.

Finally, closer to home, how do the Brits measure “poverty”? Again, it’s all relative. If you earn less than two-thirds of the median national income, you are deemed “poor”. That says it all: when the national mean and median incomes grow, the goalposts are simply shifted for the “poor” in response. As Jesus might have said, no matter what you do, once you use relative poverty, there will always be “poverty”.

*http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/BG1221.cfm

**For instance, the US Census Bureau recently updated their definition of poverty, by increasing the threshold in which a family can be considered “poor” — by $3,000! To paraphrase the metal band, Megadeth, “Poverty is my business, and business is good.”

John Lalor can be contacted at the Freedom Institute

I wish Lalor had taken a approach which framed the question as what does it mean to be poor? Something like this, but not necessarily this:

What does it mean to be poor? While most people would be hard-pressed to give a precise answer, many of us feel we can recognize poverty when we see it. For example, a news story accompanied with images of malnourished children in a troubled region can vividly display extreme poverty. As one moves away from this kind of obvious example, however, it becomes more difficult to distinguish just what people mean when they refer to "the poor," as opposed to lower-income people more generally.
In 1993 the General Social Survey fielded the following question about poverty: "People who have income below a certain level can be considered poor. That level is called the 'poverty line.' What amount of weekly income would you use as a poverty line for a family of four (husband, wife, and two children) in this community?" Answers ranged from as low as $25 to as high as $1,500 per week. The average response was $341 (about $424 in 2002 after adjusting for inflation). Most families would find it difficult to live on $25 a week. At the other extreme, $1,500 per week (about $1,866 in 2002 dollars) seems excessive as a minimum standard. At what point does luxury become a necessity? More to the point, why did this question elicit such a wide variety of responses?
While poverty—or economic deprivation—is a concrete phenomenon for those who live it, the answer to these questions is that what people judge to be poor varies across both time and place. A working-class laborer in a developing country would likely be considered poor in Western Europe. In fact, the World Bank uses a poverty standard of $1 to $2 per person per day, or $1,095 to $2,190 per year, for a family of three in developing countries in Africa or Latin America. In contrast, the average official poverty threshold for a family of three in the United States was $17,738 in 2000.
As far back as 1776, Adam Smith noted the importance of social perceptions in determining what constitutes economic hardship. In the Wealth of Nations, he defined the lack of "necessaries" as the experience of being unable to consume "not only the commodities which are indispensably necessary for the support of life, but whatever the custom of the country renders it indecent for creditable people, even of the lowest order, to be without." More recently, Peter Townsend observed that people are social beings who assume many roles in a community—worker, citizen, parent, friend, and so on. He maintained that poverty should be defined as the lack of sufficient income for people to "play the roles, participate in the relationships, and follow the customary behavior which is expected of them by virtue of their membership of society."
In order to understand who we, as a society, consider poor, we must therefore begin by examining how our views have evolved. . . .
Sample Chapter, Chapter 2: Early Views of Poverty in America

Several years in Haiti taught me that poverty is an absolute with no correspondence in the US. When an entire nation suffers inadequate resources its people have little opportunity to overcome starvation and disease.
The US is awash in resources. The poorest among us are able to live in comfort unavailable to even middle class Haitians. Food, clothing, medicine, transportation, education, employment, housing, are all cheaper and more readily available here than in Haiti. Haiti has no safety net: no SS, no welfare, no medicare.... The children of poor parents are traded in slavery.
This was not true when those great champions of social justice, the Clintons, destroyed the Haitian economy with an inhumane blockade. 90% of all Haitian employment was based on US industry. Without the ability to import materials and export manufactured goods every single US company shut down their manufacturing over night. For the sake of a corrupt marxist dictator Haiti was plunged into despair by Hillary's hand. It was she who supported that twice overthrown tyrant, Aristide.
Those who parade their compassion in the market place are perpetrators of injustice and misery. Jesus also said,"When you give do not let your right hand know what your left hand is doing." Governments do not overcome injustice. They perpetrate it in the name of some specious greater good.

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