Posted on 09/10/2008 10:10:57 AM PDT by IrishMike
Perhaps it is time to stop worrying about an exit strategy for the War in Iraq and formulate one for the War on Poverty.
No, it’s not the War in Iraq — it’s the War on Poverty. Incredible as it may seem, Americans transfer more than a trillion dollars each year to low-income families through a bewildering variety of programs, all in the name of fighting poverty and inequality. That’s about seven times the cost of the Iraq war.
How do we spend so much? In 2005, $620 billion was spent on more than eighty welfare programs funded by federal, state, and local governments. But low-income persons receive benefits from other government programs that are not designated as welfare programs. Most notably, they receive benefits from Social Security, Medicare, and the public school system.
I estimate that Social Security benefits for those in the poorest fifth of the population totaled $100 billion in 2005. Medicare provided another $115 billion, and educating the children of low-income families cost $105 billion more. (These figures do not measure total spending on these programs but only the expenditures benefiting those in the lowest fifth of the income distribution.) To these sums we may add $40 billion in uncompensated medical care and $78 billion in private charity.
Grand total: $1.058 trillion in 2005. It would be larger today.
To put a trillion dollars in perspective, it’s more than twice our total spending on national defense.
It’s larger than the total revenue collected by the federal individual income tax.
It’s about ten times as much as we spent on redistributive policies in the 1950s (in inflation-adjusted dollars).
It’s equal to the total before-tax cash income of middle-income households. That’s right, we transfer to the low-income population an amount equal to the entire income of middle-income households, that is, households in the middle fifth (40th to 60th percentile) of the American income distribution.
If a trillion dollars were simply given to those counted as poor by the federal government (37 million in 2005), it would amount to $27,000 per person. That’s $81,000 for a family of three, higher than the median income of all American families, and far greater than the poverty threshold of $15,577.
By any reasonable standard, a trillion dollars devoted to fighting poverty and inequality is a substantial sum.
What do we get for it? That is the question we should be asking our politicians in this election year as they urge us to spend still more on the War on Poverty.
When Lyndon Johnson inaugurated the War on Poverty in 1964, he assured the public that “. . . this investment [of tax dollars] will return its cost many fold to our entire economy.” Now that this “investment” has reached a trillion dollars a year we should evaluate whether the returns have, in fact, been large. Some questions to consider:
Is the low-income population more independent and self-supporting than before the War on Poverty?
Has the trillion-dollar expenditure eliminated poverty in America? Reduced it dramatically?
Has the trillion-dollar expenditure reduced inequality? Are the egalitarians grateful to the American people for their sacrifices in this area, or are they continually carping about increasing inequality?
Are more disadvantaged children being raised in stable two-parent families today than before the War on Poverty?
Are the children in low-income families getting good educations that prepare them for productive lives as adults? Have the racial gaps in educational achievement been eliminated or greatly narrowed?
Has illegitimacy been reduced in the low-income population?
Is crime lower today than in the 1950s, before the War on Poverty?
The answers to these questions, I submit, paint a bleak picture of the accomplishments of the American welfare state. While a nuanced interpretation of the evidence may identify a few positive returns on our “investment,” we have a right to expect a lot more for a trillion dollars a year. Perhaps it is time to stop worrying about an exit strategy for the War in Iraq and formulate one for the War on Poverty.
Exactly. How is a cool tril a year not enough to eliminate “poverty” as we know it in this country? Nevermind that virtually all poor people in this country seem to have a roof over their heads with central air and heat, a tv, etc... Plus poor kids have a chance to go to a public school, which even if it isn’t that great, offers them a chance to work their way out of poverty and into the middle class, provided they are willing to work hard.
That's the problem. Once begun, the war continues indefinitely, or until the nation becomes bankrupt as a result.
Clearly the way to get ahead is to get yourself on the other side of one of these “Transfers of Wealth”, either as a contractor or impoverished soul.
I guessed the subject of the article from the title.
There was a disturbance in the Force.
You will never get rid of poverty....no matter how much you spend. Poverty has been around since the beginning of time and will remain. Throw all the money you want at it and it will always be there as long as people get a hand out. We throw money at abortion but there are some in the inner city that use abortion as birth control and the tax payer pays for it. We throw money at lunch programs for kids when it’s the parents that should be feeding the kids. Even at that, the schools throw tons of food away because the kids won’t eat it. We need to rethink all of our tax programs and get rid of the give aways.
if you figure the lowest 10% of the population is 'poor' then that is equal to about $24,000 for every PERSON
or...almost $100,000 for a family of 4
we have the wealthiest POOR people in the world.
You subsidize dairy and you get warehouses full of milk, butter and cheese.
You subsidize grains (corn, soybeans, wheat, etc.) and you get rotting mountains of it.
The list could go on.
Less beggars, Less homeless, Less abandoned children, Less crime, Lower unemployment figures, People live longer, healthier, and educated. Higher drug dependency (legal, and illegal.
27K per year per poor person? It’s a shame NO ONE in this country knows this.
I have family members that work very hard for less than this per year.
I like say "we have the fattest POOR people in the world!"
ping
Read the article:
Is the low-income population more independent and self-supporting than before the War on Poverty?
Has the trillion-dollar expenditure eliminated poverty in America? Reduced it dramatically?
Has the trillion-dollar expenditure reduced inequality? Are the egalitarians grateful to the American people for their sacrifices in this area, or are they continually carping about increasing inequality?
Are more disadvantaged children being raised in stable two-parent families today than before the War on Poverty?
Are the children in low-income families getting good educations that prepare them for productive lives as adults? Have the racial gaps in educational achievement been eliminated or greatly narrowed?
Has illegitimacy been reduced in the low-income population?
Is crime lower today than in the 1950s, before the War on Poverty?
Americans would be shocked cold if they realized how bad much of the world has it. Could we do better? Sure. But this constant harping over 'the poor and the middle class' in America is appalling. It's raw envy, and the instigation of envy, and no matter how good things get, people will always want more.
Some charts on welfare and the difference after ‘welfare reform:
http://www.neoperspectives.com/summary.htm
He's using the cost of these programs to increase the his numbers for the cost of the war on poverty. But social security and public schools are available to anyone, not just the poor. Using this logic, you could include part of the cost of paying for the military into the cost of the war on poverty, since the military also protects the poor from foreign invasion.
America’s Trillion-Dollar Housing Mistake The Failure of American Housing Policy
For more than seven decades, American government has acted to provide housing for the poor. In America’s Trillion-Dollar Housing Mistake, Howard Husock explains how, as with so many anti-poverty efforts, low-income housing programs have harmed those they were meant to help while causing grave collateral damage to cities and their citizens. Public housing projects, Mr. Husock writes, are only the best-known housing policy mistakes.
Wow.
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