Poverty - Is it income inequality or consumption inequality that matters? - Granite Grok

Poverty – Is it income inequality or consumption inequality that matters?

From Heritage, an infographic that talks about the poor in America.  And it really doesn’t describe the stereotype of what LBJ presented: that of real abject poverty in Appalachia.  We still have that in our minds when we hear about the poor.  And if you are in a location or socioeconomic strata in which you have no contact with the welfare class, that may be your “reality”.

And it is wrong – as we spend over $934 BILLION in transfer payments (taking from one to give to another):

“Today, the U.S. Census Bureau will release its annual report on poverty. This report is noteworthy because this year marks the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson’s launch of the War on Poverty. Liberals claim that the War on Poverty has failed because we didn’t spend enough money. Their answer is just to spend more. But the facts show otherwise.”

poor-in-america-croipped

“…But today the Census will almost certainly proclaim that around 14 percent of Americans are still poor. The present poverty rate is almost exactly the same as it was in 1967 a few years after the War on Poverty started. Census data actually shows that poverty has gotten worse over the last 40 years.

How is this possible? How can the taxpayers spend $22 trillion on welfare while poverty gets worse?

The answer is it isn’t possible.  Census counts a family as poor if its income falls below specified thresholds. But in counting family “income,” Census ignores nearly the entire $943 billion welfare state.”

A more quantifiable analysis :

“…But only a small portion of the more than 40 million people labelled as poor by Census fit that description.

According to government surveys, the typical family that Census identifies as poor has air conditioning, cable or satellite TV, and a computer in his home. Forty percent have a wide screen HDTV and another 40 percent have internet access. Three quarters of the poor own a car and roughly a third have two or more cars. (These numbers are not the result of the current bad economy pushing middle class families into poverty; instead, they reflect a steady improvement in living conditions among the poor for many decades.)”

poor-in-america

“…The intake of protein, vitamins and minerals by poor children is virtually identical with upper middle class kids. According to surveys by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the overwhelming majority of poor people report they were not hungry even for a single day during the prior year.”

And as far as “food insecurity” is concerned,  the Federal definition of this is, effectively, that any time during a year’s time span, one is concerned where their next meal is coming from”.  No other attributes to that – doesn’t matter if you are down and out, making it (but not flush), or somebody like me (when I used to fly a lot on biz trips) trying to figure out “I missed supper at the airport, nothing on the plane, and now at 3am at the next airport, is there going to be something open to get a bite to eat?”.  Kind of a rather wide open basis – which makes it RATHER easy to make this status “an epidemic”.

But is that the point?  To keep people in what (in America anyways – everywhere else in the world, our “poor” would be in the top 5% of income when EVERYTHING is added up) subsidence living was NOT the point of this – not at all!

“…We can be grateful that the living standards of all Americans, including the poor, have risen in the past half century, but the War on Poverty has not succeeded according to Johnson’s original goal. Johnson’s aim was not to prop up living standards by making more and more people dependent on an ever larger welfare state. Instead, Johnson sought to increase self-sufficiency, the ability of a family to support itself out of poverty without dependence on welfare aid. Johnson asserted that the War on Poverty would actually shrink the welfare rolls and transform the poor from “taxeaters” into “taxpayers.”

Owning a daycare center, I became aware of the multigenerational welfare system: single mom had a child, who becomes another single mom, and the cycle repeats.  Most people wish to succeed and further themselves but I can tell you that there are a lot of people who are quite happy to let someone support them and basically sit around.  And they related other stories as well.  Dependency can generate laziness – but worse, generates the attitude of “you owe me – I am entitled to more!” attitudes.  Ran into, screamed in my face, and had to deal with it.

We hear wails that our immigration system is broken.  It isn’t – it is merely a case that our laws are not followed or enforced.  Worse, it is our politicians that wish to do away with them altogether and become an open borders country – America means nothing to them.  Here, with our welfare system IS broken.

No, not because there is not enough money taken from others to give to others.  It is because it kills the human spirit.  Government workers go out to to enroll more and more and call that success.  I, and many conservatives, hold that in trying to help, Government hurts.  It is wandered FAR from LBJ’s purpose of building self-sufficiency – and simply devolve into a never ending morass.

Of people, as the infographic shows, who may have way more than what we think the poor have, but are missing something much more precious.

“Judged by that standard, the War on Poverty has been a colossal flop. The welfare state has undermined self-sufficiency by discouraging work and penalizing marriage. When the War on Poverty began seven percent of children were born outside marriage. Today, 42 percent of children are. By eroding marriage, the welfare state has made many Americans less capable of self-support than they were when the War on Poverty began…”

I’ve posted about this before – Robert Rector put out a study a few years ago pretty much showing that both the poor and the rich have many of the same things – the difference is not WHAT but the cost / quality of those things.

And then there is this – observe what happened when the Feds started to “help”:

failed war on poverty

“I’m from the Government and I’m here to help”

(H/T: The Daily Signal)

 

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