When Americans think of poverty, we tend to picture people who can’t adequately shelter, clothe, and feed themselves or their families.
When the Census Bureau defines “poverty,” though, it winds up painting more than 40 million Americans — one in seven — as “poor.”
Census officials continue to grossly exaggerate the numbers of the poor, creating a false picture in the public mind of widespread material deprivation, writes Heritage Foundation senior research fellow Robert Rector in a new paper.
“Most news stories on poverty feature homeless families, people living in crumbling shacks, or lines of the downtrodden eating in soup kitchens,” Rector says. “The actual living conditions of America’s poor are far different from these images.”
Congress is tying itself in knots figuring out how to cut spending and bring down a $14 trillion national debt. Lawmakers might well take a much closer look at the nearly a trillion dollars spent each year on welfare even though many recipients aren’t what the typical American would recognize as poor and in need of government assistance.
What is poverty? Americans might well be surprised to learn from other government data that the overwhelming majority of those defined as “poor” by the Census Bureau were well-housed and adequately fed even in the recession year 2009. About 4 percent of them did temporarily become homeless.
Data from the Department of Energy and other agencies show that the average poor family, as defined by Census officials:
● Lives in a home that is in good repair, not crowded, and equipped with air conditioning, clothes washer and dryer, and cable or satellite TV service.
● Prepares meals in a kitchen with a refrigerator, coffee maker and microwave as well as oven and stove.
● Enjoys two color TVs, a DVD player, VCR and — if children are there — an Xbox, PlayStation, or other video game system.
● Had enough money in the past year to meet essential needs, including adequate food and medical care.
Rather than report such detailed surveys, Rector and co-author Rachel Sheffield write, the media “amplified” the Census Bureau’s annual misrepresentation of poverty over the past 40 years. News reports routinely suggest that poor Americans typically are homeless and hungry — and U.S. foes and rivals such as Iran, China, and Russia are delighted to report the same.
“Regrettably, most discussions of poverty in the U.S. rely on sensationalism, exaggeration, and misinformation,” Rector says. “But an effective anti-poverty policy must be based on an accurate assessment of actual living conditions and the causes of deprivation.”
See the full Heritage Foundation paper, including downloadable charts, here: “Air Conditioning, Cable TV, and an Xbox: What Is Poverty in the United States Today?”
— Ken McIntyre is the Marilyn and Fred Guardabassi fellow in media and public policy studies at the Heritage Foundation.
Those fat-cat poor people running around their motel rooms playing playstation!!!
Half of them have a coffee machine!
And demon-crats want to raise taxes on the wealthy, job producing Americans. I think we should raise taxes on the job-destroying poor, sipping away at their coffees.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWas there a point in there somewhere?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe poor aren't poor enough. I thought the NRO was against class warfare?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNice strawman. Did it take you long to build? Did your mommy help?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMark,
I see you're still smarting from my lessons to you re tax policy and time value of money. Stick to stuff you understand, which doesn't include your trenchant analysis above of the state of the middle class in "most Europe."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWas that nonsense supposed to be a lesson? I thought you were just mumbling to yourself.
When you figure out what those terms mean, then maybe we would have grounds for a discussion. Untill then, keep telling yourself how smart you are. Maybe someday your mother will come to believe it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYou respond with derision and jokes, but Kevin is perfectly correct: you know nothing about economics and fiscal policy. At the very least, your comments here betray the fact that you can't tell BS from reality, on economic matters.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHow is the original comment not a straw man? The official definition of "poverty" plainly bears no relation to the meaning of this term in the English language, thereby distorting all forms of analysis and debate. This is indisputable.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe man who clearly knows nothing about economics, or anything else, seeks to set himself up as the standard on what other people know.
That would be funny, if it weren't so common amongst liberals.
You have yet to point out a single error that I have made. You have pointed out many cases where I disagree with liberal dogma, but that is not the same as being wrong.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMark,
Your repeated references to my 84-year-old mother are a bit creepy. Insult me all you want but please keep her out of this.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePointing out that even your mother doesn't agree with you, is creepy?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHow do you know that his mother doesn't agree with him?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIs MLS also lying about the middle class in Europe? Or is this just more evidence that what you want to believe and reality, have little in common?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseA person living at the poverty line in the US, is better off than someone living in the middle class, in most Europe.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs someone with family living Europe and in South America, I can atest to the veracity of MarkW's comment. My family in Europe and in South America are not considered poor by THEIR standards. Yet the "poor" here according to the definitions used by government, have more than the average middle class in other countries. This is a fact obvious to anyone who has travelled to or lived in other countries. My husband's job entails lots of travel. He often stays with family or friends when he goes to Europe or South America. Constant reminders for him of how wonderful we have it here thanks to the liberty and the capitalism we enjoy. Sadly, he sees the patterns we have seen in our countries of origin start to develop here. It is time for a change in the government's justification to steal from the self-made wealthy, the prosperous by the sweat of their own brow, the job creators, and the all hard-workers, for the so-called "poor." As Benjamin Franklin said: The best one can do for the poor is to make them feel uncomfortable in their own poverty. The exact quote: "The best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.... The more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, & of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, & became richer." - Benjamin Franklin
The more I read about the founders and the words they wrote themselves both for public view and in their private letters, the more convinced I am that they would have despised the American leftists.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGoods in America are cheap. Very cheap, in fact. Without knowing how they actually got them (donations, conventional purchase, purchased with credit, etc.) it's very easy to misinterpret what this accumulation of stuff actually means.
And to compare American poor to European poor can be difficult as well; I'm not sure I'd find many Europeans willing to trade their health coverage for an X-Box.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOK, then how about this comparison. The "poor" have a better standard of living today than the average U.S. family had in the 1950s.
The point here is obvious. Those of us who work hard are having tax dollars stolen from us to fund a cushy lifestyle for the lazy. If you have an XBox or cable, you don't need food stamps. Rather, you need a BUDGET and a job.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo you are saying that we should do away with charitable contributions and 'gifts' because by the fact of 'poor' people having these things means that they don't live within your view of poverty. Toys for Tots asks people to donate brand new toys every year around Christmas for needy kids. Based on your definition, Toys for Tots is absolutely evil. Poor people should refuse any gits from said organizations because they wouldn't look poor enough.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI've lived in Europe and know middle and working class people there who wouldn't want to trade places with those at the poverty line in the U.S.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseExactly which video game systems does the chart include? A tricked out PS3 can run you $400, but you can pick up a last gen PS2 for under $50. Heck, I picked up an original X-Box for $20 about 6 months ago. I’m open to the idea that Americans have a ludicrous definition of poverty, but that doesn’t make a sloppy and overly broad metric any less sloppy.
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