An inflation indexed poverty level. Well if you’re going to believe in poverty levels at all, then inflation indexing them would seem to make sense. But, will deflation cause these levels to fall?
“An inflation indexed poverty level. Well if you’re going to believe in poverty levels at all, then inflation indexing them would seem to make sense.”
Current poverty levels already ARE indexed for inflation, so that poverty-level purchasing power stays constant over time. But most families have incomes that beat inflation over time, i.e., their standard of living RISES as the breadwinners increase their earnings through promotions within their own companies, or take higher paying jobs at other companies (or start their own businesses etc.). Obama is proposing to tie poverty levels to median family incomes, which would mean a) the “war on poverty” by definition can never be won (as even if we triple our standard of living instantaneously, there always will be SOME families below X% of the median); b) ever-growing costs of government, since a large number of government benefits programs (Medicaid, SCHIP, Food Stamps, SSI, TANF) are tied to poverty thresholds, thus much larger numbers of people would qualify for benefits over time than would have qualified under an absolute (albeit inflation-adjusted) standard.
Needless to say, that’s the whole point: when put into legislative form, this should be titled the Federal Bureaucrats Full and Permanent Employment Act since that is effectively the really motivation behind this proposal.
Argh, you beat me to it.
I was going to say exactly the same thing.
:-P