Ezra Klein: Your World In Charts: Poverty Edition

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April 30, 2007

Your World In Charts: Poverty Edition

From CAP's new strategy to halve poverty by 2010:

I tend to think the repetition of these numbers is important, as one of the most pernicious myths is that poverty is entirely an African-American, and occasionally an immigrant, problem. In fact, a hefty plurality of the impoverished are white. Can we help them now?

Incidentally, discussions about poverty occasionally get tripped up by the oddness of the federal poverty measure, which isn't particularly related to any working definition of what it means to be poor. At this point, the measure acts as a relatively arbitrary income baseline below which you're judged impoverished. Conservatives make a lot of hay from this fact.

Here's the fun part, though: Just about every alternate measure constructed, including the metric developed by the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that the current poverty limit is woefully inadequate, that a family of four needs more than $19,000 and change to survive, and so increases the number of poor in the country. And then, when you go and ask ordinary Americans how much a family of four requires not to be poor, they tend to offer responses around $40,000 -- only one percent thought $15,000-$20,0000 was sufficient. So you can quibble with the poverty measure, but be warned: Just about all the data we have suggests that it understates, rather than overstates, the plight of the poor.

April 30, 2007 | Permalink

Comments

The Democrats have allowed themselves to be painted as the party of "minority interests" - a party that doesn't care about white folks, especially men. White men have been getting killed in this economy, thus creating a political gold mine that awaits the politician who says "I care" and has real proposals that aim to do something about it.

The Republicans can only feed them hatred and resentment. This doesn't pay the bills.

Opportunity awaits.

Posted by: dcnataro | Apr 30, 2007 10:38:33 AM

I don't see why the Democratic party would not cater to white men other than the fact that they have blamed them for all of the other groups' problems for so long as well as used them as a whipping post in every racial issue discussed.

Posted by: Fred Jones | Apr 30, 2007 10:53:11 AM

I know, it was such a mistake to ever blame white men for slavery and Jim Crow. Clearly, if black people had only worked harder, none of that would have happened.

I'd like to see those statistics broken down between urban and rural poor. Because urban and rural poor people face significantly different problems, and I think shifting the focus to impoverished whites will necessarily involve shifting the focus away from the somewhat unique problems facing blacks, latinos, other immigrants and some poor whites inside major cities. The issues with the criminal justice system, gangs, certain drug policies, some environmental injustices etc. need to be looked at separately. Like you, I think race is a big reason they aren't addressed.

Posted by: Sam L. | Apr 30, 2007 11:17:25 AM

Alert the media: about half the nation is white and so are about half the poor people in our nation are also white.

I notice this chart does not address gender or age.

Posted by: ShortWoman | Apr 30, 2007 12:02:27 PM

I know, it was such a mistake to ever blame white men for slavery and Jim Crow.

Any of them alive today?

Posted by: Fred Jones | Apr 30, 2007 12:08:20 PM

Any of them alive today?

I think it's well within the realm of possibility that someone who was alive in 1965 might still be breathing today.

Posted by: Magenta | Apr 30, 2007 12:17:22 PM

"Incidentally, discussions about poverty occasionally get tripped up by the oddness of the federal poverty measure, which isn't particularly related to any working definition of what it means to be poor. At this point, the measure acts as a relatively arbitrary income baseline below which you're judged impoverished. Conservatives make a lot of hay from this fact."

Ezra, you're still rather missing the point. As to your next paragraph, yes, if the US measured poverty as the OECD suggests it should be then the number of those in poverty might rise. For it would be measuring relative, not absolute poverty, and doing so by looking at those on less than 60% or median income, adjusted for housing costs.

However, here's the part you have missed. That number is measuring those in poverty AFTER all the help they are offered. After tax credits, after housing subsidies, after health care and so on.

Whereas the current Federal Poverty line measures poverty BEFORE all those things.

That's the thing that I make hay with. You (and others) continually attempt to measure, discuss and define, poverty, then call for more to be done about it, while refusing to look at the figures after we've done whatever it is we already do about it.

If you'll start discussing child poverty, for example, by looking at the figures for children who actually live in poverty, rather than those who would be in poverty if we weren't helping them, then it would be possible to actually have a reasonable conversation about what, if anything, to do next.

Until then it really isn't possible to dicuss these things reasonably.

Posted by: Tim Worstall | Apr 30, 2007 12:43:56 PM

That chart shows the distribution of the poor by race, not the percentage within each race that are poor.

I'm unaware of anyone who considers poverty to be "entirely an African-American" problem. But people do see it as something African-Americans are more likely to deal with than other groups, which the chart demonstrates.

You would be better off (and more intellectually honest) if you could marshal an argument that acknowledges that fact and also support anti-poverty programs. One could argue along the “heritage of slavery” line that it takes at least a century to erase inter-ethnic socio-economic divisions, and that fighting poverty is an adjunct to erasing Jim Crow, which was completed in the 1960’s. So until 2070, we should not be surprised to see a “disproportionate” number of a once-reviled group being poor.

Posted by: quiddity | Apr 30, 2007 12:58:47 PM

As always, education is the key. Few educated people remain in poverty. It is the only long term solution.
However, that might take some personal responsibility and so I don't see anyone interesed in pushing it.

Posted by: Fred Jones | Apr 30, 2007 1:22:53 PM

I think it's well within the realm of possibility that someone who was alive in 1965 might still be breathing today.

/snerk

Posted by: nolo | Apr 30, 2007 1:58:58 PM

one of the most pernicious myths is that poverty is entirely an African-American, and occasionally an immigrant, problem

I think it's a myth that that's a myth. I've never come across anyone who believes it.

So true, Fred. I don't know any liberals who favor Head Start, public education through high school, community and other public colleges, student loans and grants, education programs for welfare recipients, etc.

Posted by: Sanpete | Apr 30, 2007 4:23:28 PM

Oh, don't be a goober.

Lots and lots of conservatives see great value in financial aid to struggling students. Of course, when you apply to schools and for finacial aid, be sure that you are a minority 'cause you are treated better.

Posted by: Fred Jones | Apr 30, 2007 7:08:55 PM

Fred, how does your comment support your earlier remark or conflict with what I said?

Posted by: Sanpete | Apr 30, 2007 7:17:17 PM

Ah, yes, personal responsibility is the only obstacle to education. If only people would work harder, they could all go to Harvard. Forget their substandard education from the primary level and the lack of grants rather than loans.

Not to mention that we need good-paying jobs for people who are not brilliant scholars. Not everyone can go and be a stockbroker or a computer programmer (not that those jobs are not being displaced to other countries.) What do we do with the many wonderful, if not "book-smart" young people who in the past would have found decent wages as auto mechanics or steelworkers or technicians? Should they all be the serfs of the modern world, destined to a life of stocking the shelves of Wal-Mart?

It's fine to say everyone should be educated, and I don't entirely disagree, but what does that mean? We still need people to work in restaurants and act as clerks in stores and pick up the trash. Are they not worthy of a living wage?

Posted by: Magenta | Apr 30, 2007 8:26:12 PM

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