More Americans In “Severe Poverty”
According to a study analyzing US Census data:
The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty
has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling
closer to the poverty line and the gulf between the nation’s “haves”
and “have-nots” continues to widen.
A McClatchy Newspapers analysis of 2005 census figures, the
latest available, found that nearly 16 million Americans are living in
deep or severe poverty. A family of four with two children and an
annual income of less than $9,903 – half the federal poverty line – was
considered severely poor in 2005. So were individuals who made less
than $5,080 a year.
The McClatchy analysis found that the number of severely poor
Americans grew by 26 percent from 2000 to 2005. That’s 56 percent
faster than the overall poverty population grew in the same period.
McClatchy’s review also found statistically significant increases in
the percentage of the population in severe poverty in 65 of 215 large
U.S. counties, and similar increases in 28 states. The review also
suggested that the rise in severely poor residents isn’t confined to
large urban counties but extends to suburban and rural areas.
The plight of the severely poor is a distressing sidebar to an
unusual economic expansion. Worker productivity has increased
dramatically since the brief recession of 2001, but wages and job
growth have lagged behind. At the same time, the share of national
income going to corporate profits has dwarfed the amount going to wages
and salaries. That helps explain why the median household income of
working-age families, adjusted for inflation, has fallen for five
straight years. These and other factors have helped push 43 percent of the
nation’s 37 million poor people into deep poverty – the highest rate
since at least 1975.
Good thing we have such a robust safety net to help those slipping through the cracks of the free market. Oops. Here’s the other troubling piece of the puzzle (HT TNR):
The Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation shows
that, in a given month, only 10 percent of severely poor Americans
received Temporary Assistance for Needy Families in 2003–the latest
year available–and that only 36 percent received food stamps.
Many
could have exhausted their eligibility for welfare or decided that the
new program requirements were too onerous. But the low participation
rates are troubling because the worst byproducts of poverty, such as
higher crime and violence rates and poor health, nutrition and
educational outcomes, are worse for those in deep poverty.
on February 25th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
A simple solution to this problem is to offer even more tax cuts to the wealthy.
You know: the trickle down effect.
Yep.
on February 25th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
Commonweal commentator William Galston has argued that avoiding family poverty requires three things: 1) finish high-school, 2) marry before having children and 3) marry after the age of 20.
It would be interesting to see if changes in these patterns, rather than changes in the shares of national income going to profits, explain any increase in severe poverty. In other words, the problem of severe poverty may not be due to low wages for full time workers but to the inability of some, for whatever reason, to fully participate in the economy. As Galston and others have pointed out, the importance of holding household composition constant (substantively as well as statistically) when examining poverty should no longer be in dispute.
For an alternative interpretation from the right of the wages and profits data mentioned in the article see the Heritage Foundation:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/bg1978.cfm
on February 27th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
By any reasonable reckoning, the poverty problem in our country is not merely severe. It is morally outrageous. I know that I do not have the expertise to propose policies that would remedy this situation, but I do believe that there are some clear points that any morally tenable policy proposal has to honor.
1. Each person is always entitled to the basic resources needed for nutrition, shelter, and basic health care. Whatever a person has done or failed to do, he or she cannot forfeit this entitlement.
2. Whatever the merit of Galston’s analysis, or any other alternative analysis, the present fact remains that there are people who can’t wait for reforms that need years to be implemented. They need a safety net today. Not tomorrow. Today. Ignoring their claim on presently available resources is not morally acceptable.
Our county has a large population of poor people. The admittedly meager volunteer work I do to help these people makes it clear how urgently many of them need help. Any supposedly orthodox economic theory that would rule out the urgency of satisfying the basic needs of these people for some putative future overall benefit can’t stand serious moral scrutiny. These people, in their deep present need cannot rightfully be sacrificed for the benefit of some future population.
This core issue, so far as I can see, lies at the heart of Catholic Social Ethics, violations of which are at least as sinful as many acts prohibited by the moral obligations we have as individuals.
on February 28th, 2007 at 11:54 am
“The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high,”
This is odd. The Census Bureau’s historical poverty table: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/histpov/hstpov5.html
As can be seen from that table, 2005 was far from a “32-year high” in the percentage of Americans at below 50% of the poverty line. The percentage in 2005 was 5.4%, the same percentage as in 1996 and 1997. (1997 was actually worse for every other figure — 75% of the poverty line, etc.)
The figures for 1991 through 1994 were all higher than 2005 — 5.6% to 6.2%.
At any rate, it would be interesting to know what the actual evidence is here, rather than accepting such a news story at face value.
on March 1st, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Let’s grant Stuart’s observations. They do nothing to change the urgency of providing for the poor. Consider the following issues that the poor–those with incomes of less than 100% (not only those below 50%)- have to deal with.
1. Lack of affordable housing.
2. Difficulty in obtaining adequate medical care.
3. Inadequate public transportation.
4. Poor educational opportunities.
These problems and more exist in Clarke County, Georgia, the home county of the University of Georgia, with a population of about 100,000. A citizen’s group, with good leadership and strong professional expertise, is in the process of finalizing a program to address some of these issues. What this group recognizes is both the depth of the structural problems that actually perpetuate poverty but also the shortage of moral and political will to improve the life of the poor.
This Georgia county is by no means the only U. S. county with large poverty issues.
It is probably useful to get the right answer about the percentage of poor people in the community. But Stuart’s own figures suggest that there has not been much progress in improving the lot of the poor during the last decade or so. Meanwhile, is there any doubt that the rich among us have gotten much richer during this time? Is there any evidence of strong public interest in addressing poverty? If there is, I don’t see it. And if there is this interest, it has not yet borne notable fruit. The depth and scope of poverty in our country remains a scandal.
on March 1st, 2007 at 9:27 pm
I was about to ask why you were speaking of Clarke County when I decided to use Google, whereupon I found that you’re an emeritus professor of philosophy at UGA.
Small world — I got bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music from UGA (1995 and 1997, respectively). In 1991, I took an ethics class with John Granrose. And as a graduate student, I had accumulated enough music credits that I could take anything else throughout the university (just to have a full load). I chose a graduate-level Philosophy of Mind course with Robert Burton, and it was a wonderful experience. Burton was an amateur classical guitarist — my specialty (at least at the time) — and we hit it off quite well. I remember one fascinating field trip where he took us to a field research lab where we saw the bonobos Kanzi and Panbanisha. Burton later attended my wedding in Atlanta.
Back to the discussion at hand. I don’t mean to downplay the problems of poverty at all; I just mean to suggest that a teensy bit of healthy skepticism is in order before proclaiming some sort of dramatic decline.
What to do about poverty — the most straightforward thing, it seems to me, is something along the lines of what Charles Murray has recommended in his latest book: give everyone over the age of 21 a straight-up cash grant of $10,000 a year. Just that alone would bring even single parent families above 50%-of-the-poverty-line.
Unfortunately, I think a lot of people are suffering from a lot of problems that mere money won’t fix. For examples relevant to Clarke County, Georgia, see the following blog posts of mine:
http://stuartbuck.blogspot.com/2003/05/thanks-to-joanne-jacobs-i-found-this.html
and
http://stuartbuck.blogspot.com/2006/04/trip-3.html
on March 5th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
Thanks, Stuart, for your message. I’ve been out of town for a few days, so I’ve just seen it. I will check out your links tomorrow.
all the best.
Bernard
on March 5th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
P. S. Stuart, I do doubt that I’ll end up agreeing with Charles Murray, but I will look at what you’ve sent, unless this topic gets purged before I get to it. In any event, thanks.
Bernard