The Census Bureau says there are 35 million poor in the U.S., and politicians use poverty as an excuse to give politicians more money and power to fix the problem. Over 82% of Americans say they do something to help our poor each year (higher in years that have catastrophe’s like Katrina). For most Americans, the word “poverty” suggests destitution: an inability to provide a family with nutritious food, clothing, and reasonable shelter. After all, when the Johnson administration declared “war on poverty” in 1964, it chose an absolute measure as the threshold below which families or individuals are considered to be lacking the resources to meet the basic needs for healthy living; having insufficient income to provide the food, shelter and clothing needed to preserve health. But that isn’t how the government has measures it for a long time. Government defines poor as either the bottom 20% (quantile) of income earners — or — by anyone with “cash income” less than the official poverty thresholds (which vary slightly by government agency but seems to be roughly the bottoms 15-20% of income earners).
So what is the typical poor person in the U.S. (according to the government):
1) The expenditures per poor person is equal to what the median income was (adjusted for inflation) just 30 years ago. The poor haven’t gotten poorer, they got richer than the average americans were just 30 years ago. (Just the rest of our incomes grew faster). So basically our poor have more money than your family did in the 70’s (assuming you’re average). And by today’s poverty standards, almost every single American (even the richest) had a Grandparent who would be labeled as poor by today’s standard. Greater than 70% of our poor households admit that were able to meet all essentials (including medical care) last year. Less than 4% said they have more than 3 problems with late payments of utilities, rent or mortgage in the last year (only about double the national average).
2) The average poor American has adequate housing in good repair and is not overcrowded (only 6% of poor are overcrowded). 46% own their own home (average being 3 bedroom 1 1/2 bath, 1300 sq. ft.). Our poor has roughly the same rate of home ownership as all of England did in 1981. In fact, the average poor American has more living space than the AVERAGE individual living in Europe today. In U.K. and France the AVERAGE (for all people) is about 380 sq. ft / person, 395 for all of Europe. America’s poor have 438 sq. ft. Compared to 721 sq. ft. for average Americans. In “middle income” countries 162 sq ft./person is average. In poor countries it is 65 sq ft. Many don’t realize how good Americans have it.
3) Far from being undernourished, consumption of protein, vitamins, and minerals is virtually the same for poor and middle-class children (with poorer kids having higher meat consumption) and is usually well above recommended norms. Our poor have a protien intake is 100% above recommended levels. They eat three times as much meat per year as the average Japanese person or 75% more than the average Briton. This contributes to why our “poor” children grow up to be one inch taller and 10 pounds heavier that the GIs who stormed the beaches of Normandy in World War II. $.32 of every dollar on food spent by the poorest quintile is spent in Restaurants. Less than .5% of Americans experience hunger due to lack of money to buy food at any given time (2% experience temporary food shortages at some time in a year), and only 8% of that number were children (1 in 400 children skipped one or more meals per month due to money). With the amount of food banks, missions, and generous Americans, hunger and undernourishment is all but unknown in the U.S.
4) Poverty is often short-lived. More than half of all poverty “spells†(time spent in poverty) in the U.S. last less than four months, and about 80% last less than a year. Substantial income mobility, both upward and downward, exists in America. About 38 percent of all households in the lowest income quintile rose to a higher quintile within three years. An almost equal percentage (34 percent) of all households in the top quintile fell within three years. Spells of uninsurance are short-lived as well. The typical family that loses health insurance is uninsured for only 5.6 months on average. We use the short term spells as a way to exaggerate the problem and deceive the populous.
So our poor has little problems with food, clothing, housing, and can meet most of the necessary bills. They shouldn’t worry about the lack of opportunity, as they have more than anywhere else in the world, and is proven by how short term the average poverty is. Well, how about luxuries;
1) Average appliances of the poor include; refrigerator (99%), stereo (58%), color televisions (97%), two or more color televisions (52%), Big screen TV (25%). VCR or DVD (78%), cable or satellite TV (62%). More than 90% have phones (25%+ with cellphones). 22,000 “poor” households have their own heated swimming pools or Jacuzzis.
2) Most own one car (73%), 30% own two or more cars. 76% have air conditioning; 30 years ago only 36% of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning. Our poor have clothes washer and dryer (65%), microwaves (73%), personal computers (28%), dishwasher (40%). All these rates exceed most European countries AVERAGES (not their poor).
3) Our poor have some of the best emergency medical care in the world, most have general healthcare (medicare and state variants). I’d rather be a poor person in America with a serious medical condition than a rich person in most of the rest of the world. That’s why much of the worlds very rich come to America when they have medical problems, so they can get the same healthcare that is available to our poor.
Re-Defining poverty
The Census Bureau sees poor as roughly; $10-12K/year of cash income for 1 person — or $20-25K/year for 4 persons. However, this completely disregards assets owned by the “poor,” and does not count much of what is in fact income. They intentionally don’t count government aid as income; all non-cash aid to the poor, like food stamps, public housing, rental assistance/rent control, educational assistance/grants/loans, artificially low interest rate loans, medicaid, and so on, is all completely ignored in the Census, but has real world value. The Federal Government spends $158 billion, or over $11,120 for every “poor” U.S. household. That is highly conservative, and isn’t counting all the State, Local, and Private charities which contribute even more again. And we often don’t factor in things like tip incomes (for hourly workers), bartered work/goods, or there are huge amounts of unreported income/jobs or tax free revenue. This is clear from the Census’s own data which shows that low income persons spend $1.94 for every $1.00 in “income” reported by the Census itself. Other studies have confirmed expenditures at 2.4+ times above what math and “income” would allow.
If you take a poor family of 4 in America, making $19,307 (legally poor), then you apply the ratio of reported income to actual projected incomes (by a variety of sources), plus conservative estimates of federal benefits, and they are more likely to be making $46,937.97. That’s according to our notoriously under-reporting government agencies, and ignoring much state and private aid.
If you want to compare their purchasing power to that of Europeans, you’d have to factor in lower price of goods (25-100% better) and lower taxes (25-30% lower). Conservatively that’s about $73,340.59 (or 55,430.874 Euro’s, 37,464.543 British Pounds based on today’s exchange rate) for Europeans to have the purchasing power and security of our poor! That’s before counting 50% more living space, higher auto ownership, higher creature comforts, lower unemployment, more job opportunities, more ubiquitous higher education, and so on. Most people I know in Europe wouldn’t call living in those conditions “impoverished”, as that is often well above their averages (middle class).
One study took a welfare mother (family of 4) living in New York city and came up with like her total income, factoring in all forms of assistance was around $65,000/year (greater than entry level salaries for both Police or Firemen). If you figure out the costs of the programs to taxpayers for that level of income, they were multiple times that. A couple that gets $7,548 in medicade assistance, actually costs the taxpayers $19,838. A welfare mother of three will get school lunch and breakfast programs that cost taxpayers an additional $18,765/year. Not exactly an efficient redistribution of wealth.
Our government agencies have multiple means of calculating poverty, but they all seem to have many criteria relative to the richest Americans. So Bill Gates getting richer, means that others are getting poorer, according to our government? Someone needs to teach them about economics. The fact that the poor are earning more, or have more things (goods and services) than they did last year is seldom factored in. If you think income parity is more important than absolute value or living conditions, ask yourself if you’d rather have a more fair/equally rich society like Cuba (which all earn an average of $1,000/year), or be poor in country like the U.S. where you’ll only earn $50K-75K in purchasing power, but there will be millionaires and billionaires with far more than you? All the people taking boats and bathtubs to try to get to the U.S. from Cuba should give you an idea of how most rational human beings would answer that question.
To give you some perspective, this last year I was unemployed much of the year. If I didn’t report myself as married (and we just lied or lived together, as many on welfare/assistance do), I would have likely qualified as poor. I could have gotten lots of government benefits and would probably show up as one of the many needy. Our homes, cars, the obscene income I made on the stock market (in tax-free/deferred accounts), income on home sales, and our net worth would all not be factored in by government standards. And that’s before counting deductions like to various charities we gave. Under no stretch of the imagination would most people consider my wife and I as “poor”, but the government would. My wife and I both did social work for years, people taking advantage of the system is not nearly as rare as you might think or hope for.
Conclusion
We have more poor now (35-37 Million) than there were when the war on poverty was declared (1965) and we spend FAR more money on it. On one hand that shows the abject failure of the federal governmental solution; unless you consider that in 1965 the black illegitimate birth rate was 28 percent compared to 64 percent today as some form of success. On the other hand, it just proves that we were successful (because we have a larger population today), and when you look at real poverty the numbers are down way below what they were — but the government and politicians will redefine things to keep problems looking bad, and keep themselves employed, and we have been somewhat successfu. And politicians and the media will happily exploit the lies and twist public perception for their own purposes as well.
This article is not meant to ignore the real problem of poverty in America. My wife and I did social work for years and have volunteered, I’ve been to many soup kitchens and food banks, been to projects and visited people in their homes. We know first hand what this article shows the numbers for. The poorest quintile (20%) has a spread of incomes. When you start looking at the numbers; 80% of poor are poor for less than a year — that isn’t poverty but unemployment or retraining issues (and often poor planning and over-spending on their part — teach that in our schools). Suddenly we’re not talking about 35 million poor but 7 million, start breaking them down between real poor and just accounted for as poor. Many under-report incomes to get all the cool free handouts and discounts — that isn’t poverty but government encouraged fraud. Most of our poor are living in conditions that would be the envy of most of the world, including a lot of the developed countries of Europe or Asia, and have more opportunities than almost any other place in the world. Many are choosing to be poor because we have systems in place that encourage behaviors that promote poverty and staying on the dole rather than climbing out.
Certainly the bottom 10% of the poorest 20% are seriously poor (numbers more like 3M people in the U.S) and many are not getting nearly enough aid. This is at least partly because the majority of the money we are throwing at poverty is being wasted on overhead, sent to the wrong places, or has regulations that hold more people down than they help up. Thus before we address the real problems, we need to understand it; both what is poverty, and what are the real causes. Then we can find real solutions.
So what are the causes for poverty in America? (This is not an all inclusive list, but the largest contributors in the U.S.):
1) Immigration and Education : One-third of all immigrants live in families in which the head of the household lacks a high school education; one-fourth of all poor persons (including children) in the U.S. are immigrants. Poverty rate among immigrant whose parents lack a high school diploma is 40.6 percent, or more than six times higher than the poverty rate among immigrant children with college-educated parents 6.3 percent. The ratio is similar among under-educated non-immigrants. But Illegal immigrant parents are 6% of the total population, but 12% of the of all poor children. You want to help poverty in America, address bad immigration policies, especially illegal immigration. Amnesty and open borders, encourages poverty in America. Closing borders to illegals and less rewards for illegal immigration would significantly help poverty.
2) Fatherless families. 66% of kids listed as poor come from single parent households. 1.3 million children are born out of wedlock. If poor mothers married the fathers of their children, almost three-quarters would immediately be lifted out of the government definition of poverty. Five times as many Women who are unwed report themselves as poor as those who are married. Hispanics are especially significant. 42% of the children of Hispanic immigrants are born out of wedlock, and 24.5% are in poverty, as compared to 9.6 poverty rate for Asian immigrants. Hispanics have 49.7 teenaged births per 1,000 girls, Blacks 38.7 births, both far higher than white (non-hispanic) of 12.4 or Asian rate of 8.8 births. These have been aggravated and not helped by welfare programs, and we need to address these root causes/problems. “Family values” proponents have a valid point, supported by the numbers. Those that mock them demonstrate their ignorance/bigotry.
3) Underwork; the image of the poor guy working 3 jobs to make ends-meet happens, but is statistically VERY rare. The average poor person is working 14.4 hours per week, and knows that if they work more, their benefits will dry up. (Many that they can’t afford to lose). If you raised their work to just 40 hours, 75% of all poor children would be lifted out of official poverty! We have unemployment rates that are half as bad as most of Europe; nearly 39 out of 40 people that want jobs can get them. And the lazy rich and lazy middle class are working nearly three times as many hours per week as our poor. Social programs discourage work, and encourage poverty. So the callous attitude of “lazy poor” is more supported by numbers than the callous attitude of the “lazy rich”. New immigrants are poor because they haven’t had time to get established, some people are short term poor (often because of poor planning), but many of the long term poor are poor not because of a lack of opportunities, but because of a lack of motivation to take them (for many complex reasons).
4) Social programs. While education, work and marriage are steady ladders out of poverty, the welfare system perversely remains hostile to the latter two. Major programs such as food stamps, public housing, and Medicaid continue to reward idleness and penalize marriage. If welfare could be turned around to encourage work and marriage, remaining poverty would drop quickly. The left mocks this, but the facts support it. Even historically when the Republicans got welfare reform through the congress in the mid 90’s, things have gotten better (even with the problems mentioned above). So we know the direction we should continue to go.
In 1970’s the U.S. Department of Health Education and Welfare undertook the most extensive and thorough controlled experiment on the behavioral consequences of welfare known as “SIME/DIME,” involving nearly 5,000 families over seven years. The experiment showed that every $1.00 of welfare given to low income persons reduced labor and earnings by 80 cents. In other words, while welfare is very ineffective in raising the incomes of the poor, it was highly effective at replacing work with dependence. Our solution was to ignore the report, never do that kind of auditing again, and increase spending. At LEAST 16% of all federal spending goes to anti-poverty programs or at least $450 Billion Dollars? $13K for each poor (from the fed alone) by the governments accounting of poor, more like $130K per poor person by those who can do math. Double that when you add in state and local, and more when you add in private. Certainly the $50K/poor person (very VERY conservatively) is more than enough, (more like $250K if you’re only looking at the truly destitute). So it isn’t about the amount of money given, but about how poorly it is managed. Start forcing congress to do their job and fight over the money they have, and create better programs, and everyone will be better off.
In no case should this be construed to mean you should take out your frustration at the system on the poor, or that assume there isn’t real poverty. But nor should we be embarrassed about “not doing enough”, or be gullible enough into thinking we should give even more. We need to revise the programs we have to better audit the money, target the real poor, and better manage the money that we are giving! We should learn to differentiate between temporary poor and long-term poor. Not listen to the political hypocrites that just want to bilk us out of more money to mismanage. We have one of the richest and most mobile economies in the world! The poor move up all the time. It is just that fatherless families, teenage pregnancies, out of control immigration (legal and illegal) and ineptly managed social programs that incentivizes the wrong behaviors, create more “poor” than we can help in most years. Then the agencies give the money to help the wrong people, because they know if we helped the right people, the money/power might dry up.
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http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/consumption/
http://www.timbro.com/euvsusa/pdf/EU_vs_USA_English.pdf
http://www.usccb.org/cchd/povertyusa/povpulse.htm
http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/p60-229.pdf
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/bg1713.cfm
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Labor/CDA99-07.cfm
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/BG791.cfm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Immigration/SR9.cfm
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm601.cfm
http://www.heritage.org/research/budget/bg1912.cfm
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/income_wealth/005647.html
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