BobPlumb
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- Jul 16, 2013
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I have not read the Heritage article in depth. It simply states what others have been saying for some time. True or not, it is an allegation that raises questions that are worth asking and answering.
I have read the Heritage article. My thought is that the Census has a definition of the poverty level. Other people (most notably the Institute on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin, a rather liberal leaning but still mainstream organization) have developed alternative measures. The Current Population Report (P60-247) I referenced found that the existing measure looks very suspect, but stands up well as a proxy for much broader definitions.
The Heritage piece is really just a jeremiad that says that because "poor" people can afford, X they really aren't poor. I have three objections to this approach.
1. The Heritage Foundation provides no alternative definition of poverty to compare the official definition to. How many people do they think are "truly" poor? The implied definition from their discussion is a true level of destitution not often seen in this country (although I have seen it and it is more common than most people think).
2. The Heritage Foundation has misused the Census data. The Census study gave percentages for ownership of a given asset for people below the poverty line and for a general population. The percentages for most items for poor people are half or less than for the general population. You wouldn't know that unless you fact checked the Heritage Foundation sources.
3. The underlying reasoning of the Heritage Foundation report is profoundly anti-liberty. Milton Friedman famously promoted the "negative income tax" in the 60's while advising Barry Goldwater on the basis that it was more cost efficient than specific welfare programs and that poor people could be trusted to determine what they needed better than government bureaucrats. The Heritage is a big-government Big Brother anti-libertarian advocate apparently when it comes to the poor. Or maybe they want the poor to simply starve to death outside emergency rooms in the freezing cold after being evicted from their homes while being denied medical care. While that might be satisfying to Republican presidential primary debate audiences, I think it smacks of libertarianism for only the rich and "please die quietly" a la Alan Grayson's famous speech for everyone else.
The first question that was asked was: Was LBJ's so called war on poverty a success or failure.
First:
I am not sure anyone set the bar for what success or failure would be. That would be a debate in itself. But since we don't know the standard...we can't answer the question.
To me the bar is obvious: LBJs goal was to reduce the number of people in poverty as rapidly as possible, looking toward a day in the foreseeable future when it would be eliminated. By that definition, he was relatively successful, decreasing the portion in poverty from 19% to 10% over six years.
Second:
How is poverty measured ? Has it been consistent ? And...does it really say what poverty is. I recall from past readings that the so-called poverty line is a function of the price of a bag of groceries. I'll read your article....Does this metric really measure poverty ?..... I am asking what is a good metric ?
I referenced the Census website for both the historical development of the measure from Mollie Oshansky on and the recent study looking at alternative measures. You are correct that the official measure continues to be a multiple of food cost. The study compares that to broader measures.
I have finessed one issue so far which is indirectly raised by the Heritage Foundation. The official measure is statistically reliable and valid with reference to the broader alternative definition. But if someone wants to argue that both definitions are "wrong" and we should look at mortality rates or other measures of extreme deprivation, the floor is open to such a debate. The Heritage Foundation avoids this as I assume they realize those measures (compared to other developed countries) would weaken their argument. For example, according to OECD statistics, the death rate for ALL major causes of death used to gauge effectiveness of health systems is higher in the United States than the median OECD country. Assuming that the affluent have access to better medical care, the higher death rates for everything from infectious diseases to congenital abnormalities is concentrated in the poor.
Now I sometimes get the impression that some folks think that as long as our death statistics are better than Somalia, we have no reason to complain. Who wants to set the bar that low? If our comparison is to Switzerland, Germany, or Japan, it would be an interesting measure, but we have statistics worse than Ireland and Portugal in that regard. The same thing is true of measures such as income distribution (Gini coefficients), economic mobility, and educational attainment as for health statistics.
In fact, I think that a lot of the whining on the Right reflects the case that they are playing a shell game; they know that any remotely reasonable measure of how we treat the lowest quartile or so makes America look bad. You have good questions, for which I commend you, and I think that when you look at it, you will realize that much of this is an attempt to divert attention from measurable facts and replace them with emotionally and politically loaded anecdotes.
Again, all the best!
Does the census dept use pre entitlement dollars or post entitlement dollars to define poverty? Once entitlements are added, I don't beleive so many are still in poverty. This is partly due to many people earning money under the table.