Posted on 02/19/2004 5:22:42 PM PST by .cnI redruM
Here is the new federal definition of poverty, as quietly published last week in the Federal Register and cribbed from same for placement on the Web by a group of lawyers who provide immigrants with copious free information on coping with life in the United States. Below are the new Department of Health and Human Services poverty lines for the contiguous 48 states and the District of Columbia, Alaska and Hawaii lines being slightly higher:
One person, $9,310 annual income. Two people, $12,490. Three in household, $15,670 Four in household, $18,850. Five in household, $22,030. Six in household, $25,210. Seven in household, $28,390. Eight in household, $31,570. Each additional person in household, add $3,180.
I hope you are thinking what I thought when I saw these numbers: they are shockingly low as the definition of poverty. Consider a family of four with a $18,850 annual income. Such a family would pay no federal income taxes and not pay income taxes in most states, but would pay Social Security taxes, sales taxes, fuel taxes, and other taxes. Let's say for the sake of a simple analysis that such taxes wipe out the food stamps and housing assistance for which the family might be eligible, leaving it with $18,850 for the year.
That works out to $13 per person, per day, for everything--housing, food, health care, transportation, clothes, child care, cans of soda. Could any reader of TNR.com exist on $13 per day? Not $13 a day spending money, $13 a day for everything.
Stated another way, $18,850 per year for four people is $1,571 per month. Suppose the apartment costs $500, probably typical for a small housing-project-class place. Perhaps $500 per month would go to food, even if the family subsists on macaroni and peanut butter. Already you're down to $571 per month for everything else--getting back and forth to work, clothes for four people, health care expenses, any life or car insurance, school books, day care so the parents can work, a telephone, heat, power, you get the picture. Throw in a hefty car-repair bill and the family breaks financially.
Now consider that in this family, both parents would have to work 40 hours per week at the federal minimum wage of $5.15 per hour just to clear slightly more than $18,850. If one parent worked 40 hours at the minimum wage and the other worked 20 hours at the minimum wage while caring for the children the rest of the time, the household would earn less than the poverty line.
It is a scandal that in the affluent United States, one person in eight continues to live in poverty--and it is a second scandal that the one-in-eight figure is based on the definitions above. A more realistic definition of poverty would show one in seven or even one in six living in poverty in today's United States, the most affluent large nation in history.
I won't note that taxes on the top brackets have been cut substantially twice in the last three years, while the Earned Income Tax Credit, which aids the working poor, has become only slightly more generous and the minimum wage has not increased since 1996. (To have the same inflation-adjusted value as it did in the 1960s, the federal minimum wage would need to be $7.25 an hour.) And I'll gladly admit the poor person of today is better off than the poor person of a generation ago, benefiting from the improvements in health care, reduction in crime, reduction in pollution, and other social trends that have broadly benefited everyone.
I won't note that Christian theology teaches that the first concern of society should be the least well off. And yet, though the president and many prominent Republicans and Democrats miss no chance to boast about their Christianity, poverty has become a non-issue in American politics. The minimum wage continues to erode rather than rise, the poverty line is kept artificially low to make it seems there are fewer impoverished than there are, and the Republican and Democratic leaders who miss no chance to boast about their Christianity are too busy attending corporate-sponsored golf resort outings to take notice.
No, I won't blame the greedy rich and the hypocritical politicians for the continuation of poverty amidst plenty, because this shifts attention away from the group that is most to blame: typical Americans. It is the country's middle-class, middle-income majority that endlessly demands new government benefits for itself, locking up public funds that could otherwise help the impoverished. It is the country's middle-class, middle-income majority that does not pressure politicians for higher minimum wages or similar reforms, because the country's middle-class, middle-income majority--much of which boasts of being Christian--doesn't care what happens to the forgotten poor at the bottom, or even likes the poor kept that way, as this ensures a cohort of lawn workers and burger-flippers who will accept low wages.
Most important, it is the country's middle-class, middle-income majority that endlessly demands the lowest possible price for everything, and instantly shifts its loyalties to Wal-Mart or whatever firm offers the lowest possible price. The lowest-possible-price sellers that increasingly dominate the United States economy get their low prices by paying less than a living wage, by cheating minimum-wage workers on overtime, by cutting health care benefits--to use the current California supermarket example--and otherwise ensuring that families of four remain mired at $18,850 annual income even when both parents work.
Delivery pizzas should cost a couple dollars more, groceries and paper towels and Old Navy pants and practically everything should cost slightly more so that the minimum wage could rise (there would be a ripple effect raising near-minimum wages as well) and poverty decline. It's a joke that the United States government, as of a few days ago, pretends a family of four earning $18,851 per year does not live in poverty. But it's a joke that the country's middle-class, middle-income majority has joined in.
1) Person A's poverty is never Person B's fault unless person B goes over to Person A, whips his butt and absconds with Person A's loot. It's fairly hard to fix anything if you spend half of your article hyperventilating on who's fault it is. THat wastes time.
2) Beyond the fact that 1 person in 8 lives below this line of poverty, Easterbrook has no basis for claiming poverty is a non-issue. He must have not heard the John Deadwards Two-America bromide.
3) The push to increase the minimum wage and just make everything cost more so that businesses can afford to pay it. To me, that entire gravemen for an economic argument is self-defeating. The minimum wage goes up, the prices for everything go up, the real value of the minimum wage goes back into the toilet as far as real purchasing power and you are right back where you started. It's like fixing a bad piece of computer program by coding in an infinite loop. Brilliant.
Also, "poor" people always seem to have enough money to buy themselves cigarettes and booze.
Half that if they know how to cook and shop.
"Could any reader of TNR.com exist on $13 per day? Not $13 a day spending money, $13 a day for everything."
Been there, done that, got the t-shirt, it's folded neatly away to remind me why I never want to go back to it. And I did it with no government assistance at all.
Okay, I'll probably get flamed for this, but what the hey....
Back when softballmom and dad were poor--really poor, we NEVER worked 40 hours a week. Ever. We worked more like 60-80 a week, in addition to going to school part time. We had one ratty, beat down car that ran about half the time. We had an apartment near the bus and subway lines. We didn't have cable or credit cards; we saved our pennies with coupons whenever possible. It was hard, very, very hard, but we worked.
Now granted, we knew that this situation was somewhat temporary knowing that once we were both out of school, we could secure better jobs. But, how is that so terribly difficult for anyone? There are loans and grants out there for the asking. Once you have worked your 40 hours a week, what else is there to do?
But for heaven's sakes, at least try to put off having children until things are stable. I'll grant that it was somewhat easier for us without children who needed care, but we made that choice and it worked for us.
As others on this list note, the "poor" often have luxuries undreamed of elsewhere. Where I work, I am surrounded by supposedly poor single mothers, some of them who have three or four children by different fathers. They all have fine new clothes and shoes, cell phones, microwaves, TVs, stereos, liquor, cigarettes, and cable TV. They go out to dinner regularly; they live in clean, roach-free apartments, courtesy of your tax contributions and mine. And this is in Montgomery County, Maryland--one of the most expensive housing markets in the United States, if not in the world.
I have zero sympathy for anyone who is poor under these circumstances. $13 a day? I don't think so.
You might not choose to subsidize their breeding program --- but you certainly are subsidizing it.
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