On Monday, the Census Bureau released a new poverty measure created by the Obama administration. Based on this new calculation, census officials assert that more than 49 million Americans are poor — roughly 3 million more than they reported in September’s annual poverty report.
The news was previewed last week in an Associated Press story, which reported that “the ranks of America’s poorest poor have climbed to a record high” according to the Census Bureau. It said the data also indicate poverty is spreading further into mainstream America.
Unfortunately, these reports rely on flawed and misleading poverty measures.
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The Census Bureau’s old measure failed to fully take into account the nearly $1 trillion a year in federal welfare benefits received by low-income families. How many of these benefits were counted toward an individual or family income when calculating poverty? Almost none. That’s part of the reason that, despite decades of increased welfare spending, poverty rates remained nearly unchanged.
The new measure, released Monday, does take more of these benefits into account when calculating poverty. But it further distorts the picture of poverty by placing income thresholds on an automatic elevator that climbs as overall income rises.
Thus, by this measure, even if the income of all Americans doubled immediately, poverty would not decrease, because the income thresholds would also double. Only if the incomes of the poor rise more quickly than those of the rest of the population would poverty decrease.
Although the old measure was inaccurate, the new measure is much worse. It will ensure that “poverty” can’t be alleviated except by extreme income leveling. The new measure is designed to provide a never-ending argument for the Left to insist that we must continue to “spread the wealth,” as President Obama put it so memorably when he was Candidate Obama, by throwing more money into welfare programs.
The federal government continues to pour taxpayer dollars into welfare programs, currently spending four times the amount necessary to pull every single poor person out of poverty. But government fails to address the major causes of poverty: lack of work — even in good economic times — and the rise in the out-of-wedlock birthrate in low-income communities.
In good economic times or bad, the typical poor family with children is supported by 800 hours of work during a year. That amounts to 16 hours of work per week. If work for each family were raised to 2,000 hours a year — the equivalent of one adult working 40 hours per week throughout the year — nearly 75 percent of poor children would be lifted out of official poverty.
Yet an even greater issue contributing to poverty is the high rate of babies born to single mothers. The out-of-wedlock birthrate was below 10 percent in the 1960s, when the government’s War on Poverty began; today four out of ten births are to unmarried mothers.
Children born into single-mother homes are nearly six times as likely to be poor as those born into families with married parents. Fully 80 percent of all long-term poverty occurs in single-parent homes.
Tragically, the Americans most likely to be poor already — those with a high-school diploma or less — are also most likely to have a child outside marriage. The soaring out-of-wedlock birthrate is creating a divided society, split down the lines of marriage and education.
Faulty poverty measures provide the foundation for an ever-growing welfare state, one that increases dependence on the federal government rather than seeking to alleviate the causes of poverty. We have to focus our policies on encouraging work and strengthening marriage in low-income communities. Welfare programs must not include marriage penalties, as they currently do.
America simply can’t address poverty head-on if we fail to take into account these critical factors — the lack of work and the breakdown of marriage. And if we fail to do so, we’re bound to see Americans grow not only more dependent on government, but more divided.
So, Republicans can campaign on the fact that under President Obama, 3 million new poor people were added to the rolls of the suffering in the past 5 weeks.
If the income were totally leveled (with minor exceptions), wouldn't we all be poor? One could argue that we would all be rich, but that wouldn't work with a "blame the rich" philosophy.
Seems like the drive to level income or "spread the wealth" effectively increases poverty, by diminishing the wealth of those who are not yet poor.
Maybe we should "spread the jobs". When I was a child, there was talk of people saving so much time and becoming so productive that workers might put in 30 hours or less per week. Instead, the government seems to have intimidated businesses into working people over 40 hours, to better cope with per-employee costs.
Unfortunately, this just proves the maxim that while figures don't lie, all liars figure. Statistics are malleable; they always produce the result the people using them want. Otherwise, their results don't reach the light of day.
The only reliable statistics are those that people are willing to pay for, repeatedly.
Everybody else's statistics, universities, foundations (rt & left), and the gov't's, are suspect. Don't ask what they "prove." Ask instead what is their author's motivation? Ask yourself how many studies they had to reject before they got the answer that they're willing to release.
Statistics never prove anything but there are tests that can show whether that perceived association is real or just the result of chance. Be wary of all "Studies" that omit this information.
I think a really important point is left out here and that is a class of people largely created by liberal social policy (and the flat out leftist attack on traditional morality) is being groomed to be the next permanent government dependents. Single mothers will make a great client for the Democrats, getting free food, income and health care. With any luck the Dems can get them voting D at an 80-90% rate.
There are other reasons than just the switch from an absolute poverty standard to a relative poverty standard for the increase in poverty.
The old system calculated the poverty cutoff as three times the estimated necessary food budget for a household. But over time, as food became a smaller part of the expenditure of the poor, this method became out-dated.
Furthermore, the old system didn't take the cost of living of where you lived into account. Nor did it account for taxes the poor paid (net of tax credits) or their out-of-pocket medical costs.
That's largely the reason the fewer poor people are found under this system in rural area and more are found in the cities, and why fewer middle-aged people are determined by the new standard to be poor while more elderly people are.
You're right, CT Federalist. obama's forces published this idiocy, and the Republicans CAN campaign on it but probably WON'T due to the obvious inaccuracy of its typically dumbocratic spin. Also a fifth grade grammar school class, after reading about this had a group laugh-in that lasted for over 20 minutes.
