Posted on 04/24/2021 5:20:34 AM PDT by Kaslin
Math, unfortunately for some of us, matters. And numbers, unfortunately for all of us, can mislead.
For example, President Biden’s recent $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan” was sold as a COVID-19 relief bill. But the bill provided less than $200 billion to actually fight the virus. Billions more will go toward new stimulus payments and expanded child tax credits in the months and years ahead.
Supporters call these provisions the new War on Poverty. And, just like the old War on Poverty, our eyes will look at the poverty rate as a scorecard. In the tornado of conjecture, opinion, and outright spin that has already begun, when we see quantifiable metrics like the poverty rate, we’ll grab them like helmets that can protect us in the whirlwind.
But the poverty rate can work less like a helmet and more like a tinfoil hat. It offers a false sense of security and skews our thinking.
Of course, it is worth asking: does our welfare spending actually reduce poverty?
But even more than flawed metrics like the unemployment rate or gross domestic product, the poverty rate has played a tragic role in American life. Between its design and our enduring desire to lower it, how could it not cause distortions?
Consider this: if the federal government cut a check for $1 million for every American who earned less than $100,000 a year, the poverty rate wouldn’t budge. What kind of measure of poverty is that?
Like a huckster wearing a fake firefighter’s uniform and pocketing the cash from a hustle on the side of a highway, the poverty rate twists the better angels of human nature. And it mirrors the failure of our government to lift people out of poverty with dependency, rather than self-sufficiency.
Despite its emotional charge, “poverty” does have a technical meaning. Very smart people in very large buildings in Washington, D.C. adjust it every year on a sliding scale. A single-person must make less than $12,760 per year to be in poverty. A two-person household must make less than $17,240. And so on.
When you hear something like “200 percent of the federal poverty level” or FPL, those are the numbers being used. The official poverty rate, on the other hand, is the percentage of Americans falling below the FPL.
Here’s the issue: the FPL is tied to earned income, not resources. It’s a useful measure of economic engagement among lower-income Americans. But as a measure for deprivation—as we more often imagine the poverty rate to be—it is a true distortion.
Putting aside the latest trillions earmarked, consider the trillions spent on anti-poverty programs at every level of government since the Johnson administration’s Great Society agenda in 1965.
Consider the turbulence of the late 1960s, the energy crisis and stagflation of the 1970s, strong growth in the 1980s and 1990s, the end of the Cold War, the dot-com bubble, 9/11, the Great Recession, and the record stockmarket gains before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Despite all this spending and the ups-and-downs of economic turmoil, the poverty rate did not budge from a narrow band between 11.1 and 15.2 percent between 1969 and 2018.
How?
The Left often points to the stagnant number as proof that a little more compassion and a lot more spending is needed. The Right often shrugs fatalistically and wonders if the poor will simply always be with us.
Both attitudes are wrong because the measure is wrong.
Specifically, the FPL and poverty rate don’t count public assistance. An American who earns no income but who receive benefits from cash welfare, food stamps, public housing, and Medicaid—even direct cash benefits—in excess of the FPL is counted as “in poverty.”
Of course, not all dollars are created equal. Our measures of poverty should reflect that a distributed dollar is of less value than an earned dollar. Welfare is a temporary salve that should be protected for the truly needy. An earned dollar brings dignity, community bonds, and, of course, the promise of lasting independence from funds diverted from other taxpayers.
This is why the time has come for us to break the poverty rate into two separate measures—a deprivation rate and a self-sufficiency rate.
The deprivation rate would do what the poverty rate is often portrayed as doing—quantifying need in America. It would count income and resources, including public assistance, and measure how many Americans fall below the FPL.
The deprivation rate will be extremely low, perhaps less than 2 or 3 percent. The rate and the people it represents are worth our efforts. These efforts will look very different from massive, impersonal welfare programs. Personalized efforts are required to help in individual circumstances like voluntary homelessness, mental illness, or both. These problems are extremely difficult to fix and may, indeed, always be with us.
On the other hand, a self-sufficiency rate would flip the current poverty rate on its head. It would count only earned income, not public assistance, although it might count assistance tied to work like the earned income tax-credit or wage subsidies.
Where the current poverty rate is 10 percent the self-sufficiency rate will be about 90 percent.
This isn’t trivial. When we ask how we can raise the self-sufficiency rate rather than how we can lower the poverty rate, our answers will look different.
And for able-bodied Americans, the answer has always been work. We all understand that the best public policy is individual action.
By reorienting our metrics to reflect that truth, work requirements and time limits for the able-bodied on welfare will look more like the opportunities they are and less like a roadblock to benefits.
As the dollars start to pour out, now is the time to start counting differently.
Regarding black poverty in the US (poverty in other groups may,or may not,have similar solutions):
Blacks should (listed in no particular order):
1) Only bear children in holy wedlock
2) At least one member of every household should be gainfully employed
3) No drugs (legal or illegal)
4) Little,if any,alcohol
5) Pay attention in school
6) Don’t hang out with punks,or in places where they congregate
7) Embrace delayed gratification (wait until at least 40 to buy your first Lexus/BMW)
The definition of poverty was changed to make sure there were always enough "poor" to justify the Leftist redistribution programs.
When the biggest problem of poverty is obesity, you know you are being gamed.
The whole idea of "hunger" has also been gamed. The only people who do not have enough to eat in this country are those who refuse assistance or children whose parent do not feed them, choosing to spend the money on drugs, gambling, alcohol or for other reasons.
To defeat poverty, stop the communist overthrow of the U.S.
When poverty is defined as a percentage the “war” on it can never make any progress much less win. The government defines poverty as the bottom xx percentage of the population and the “war” can only be “won” when there is no lowest percentage.
There isn't a nation on Earth that does not have differences in income or wealth - even in those commie countries. Face the reality, there will always be poor people by someone's definition.
Now here's a conservative solution: Accept the reality and stop measuring poverty all together. While the US Constitution gives the power to Congress to fix the standards of weights and measures, it wasn't intended to measure poverty, or wealth for that matter.
People that believe in limited government don't go around proposing changes in how to measure something that doesn't need to be measured by government in the first place. It is not so much the size or expense of government used to measure poverty, but the expense and ineffectiveness of the massive government bureaucracies and programs that are built because of measuring poverty.
The proof is available. The war of poverty, LBJ's Great Society, and every single social program to eradicate poverty have barely changed the number of poor people in America. Enough is enough. Give up. Fifty plus years and trillions of dollars later all there is utter failure and more importantly less freedom and liberty in America. It is all because government has been trying to solve an unsolvable problem and one our Founders never gave government power to solve.
The federal government's primary endeavor should be securing our freedoms and liberties, not forcibly confiscating and redistributing our monies.
Every time I hear a public service announcement about 1 in 7 (or whatever the number for the day is) American children going hungry I grind my teeth. The actual numbers on food security include such things as adjusting food purchases based on money concerns and insufficient food variety. So if the kiddos eat rice and beans three days in a row because you're waiting for a paycheck or this month's food stamps then your children are "hungry" just the same as if they were starving to death.
Ironically, the recent "green" proposals with severe limitations on meat production will be forcing us all on that rice and beans diet.
Well said, and saved me a lot of typing to say the same thing. The government has no role in the poverty business at any level, leave it to private charity for the truly needy. We have subsidized bad behavior and in so doing eliminated the consequences for so long they are on the verge of taking over the country.
“The federal government’s primary endeavor should be securing our freedoms and liberties, not forcibly confiscating and redistributing our monies.”
That’s crazy talk.
L
Poor people and those who pay no federal tax should be required to give public service.
They must pay their fair share.
Thet might include a death penalty due on death if they still have a service deficit
I haven't had my meds this morning.
“ Poor people in the United States would be upper middle class in most of the rest of the world.”
**************
For sure. There’s some Section 8 HUD housing near where I live and they’re very nice. And, most cars parked there are newer and nicer than mine.
Hunger and food insecurity are not the same. Here’s why that matters—and what they mean.
Okaaaay...
That sounds like a pretty good recipe for all people, not just blacks
In a neighboring county, women are eligible for WIC, if their income is below 43K
I never made that much in my life and busted my a(* doing it.
I remember an old WAR ON POVERTY cartoon from about 56 years ago. Wish I could find it.
A Hillbilly house has a man setting on the porch. Maw is reading a newspaper and says...
Maw: It says here the President has declared war on poverty!
Paw: Well if he wants me to join in that war he is going to have to draft me!
US poverty line is at 80th percentile of world incomes.
If you’re living in the top 20%, you’re not poor.
We need to stop subsidizing poverty, which makes it a viable life style alternative.
Poverty is not a real issue anymore than racism is in this country. The only issue is that the have nots are being inspired to attack the productive segment of our culture to establish Marxism. The social issues are collateral and just a means to an end.
Poverty statistics are phony. When they count income, they do NOT include non-cash government benefits such as food stamps, subsidized or free housing, Medicaid, free education (such as it is) for the kiddies, Head Start programs, free meals for kids year round, subsidized utilities, and even a free phone. So someone who has all of her necessities provided and has a small income - and don’t forget the income that is not reported - is still counted as being in poverty. It’s a scam to make it look like there are Americans living in “poverty”. The word has lost its meaning in the US. Real poverty is people living on garbage dumps in the third world.
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