Which goes exclusively to the poor

Calculated from the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement ASEC , a family is considered to be officially in poverty if their pre-tax income is below a threshold set by the current value of three times a minimum food diet in , adjusted by family composition.

After identifying children and senior citizens in poverty, we look at working-age to year-olds poverty. We use additional questions in the ASEC to characterize those of working-age as labor force participants working full- or part-time or seeking work.

If respondents were labor force nonparticipants, we then classified them as students, caregivers, disabled, early retirees, or labor force nonparticipants who defy classification into one of those categories. These were mutually exclusive categories and were assigned in descending order: labor force participant, student, disabled, caregiver, and early retiree; for example, if a working-age person in poverty is a student and labor force participant, they were categorized as a labor force participant.

In , one-third of those living in poverty were children under the age of 18 and 11 percent were senior citizens over the age of 65 figure 1.

The remaining 56 percent of those living in poverty were of working age 18 to One quarter of all those living in poverty were in the labor force and an additional 3 percent were early retirees. An additional 12 percent of the total were of working-age and disabled. Another 15 percent of those living in poverty were working-age adults who were students or caregivers, while just 2 percentage points of those living in poverty defied classification. There were approximately Children made up a smaller share of those in poverty in compared with every previous year since In , 18 percent of children were in poverty, 2 percent points below the thirty-year average of 20 percent.

Senior citizens are decreasingly likely to be in poverty—9 percent of seniors were in poverty in compared to 12 percent in —but due to population growth and aging, there are more poor seniors today. Senior citizens now make up a larger share of those in poverty than they have in over 30 years and the number of seniors in poverty was the second highest behind at 4.

The number of seniors in poverty has continued to increase even as the total number of those in poverty has declined. As seen in figure 2, growth in the number of people living in poverty has largely come from working-age adults.

Over the past 30 years, a growing number of working-age people were poor from 16 million in to Since , more than half of those living in poverty have been of working-age with the share The official poverty measure is imperfect, but is valuable as a consistent benchmark for tracking poverty over time and is relevant because it determines eligibility for some programs. There are two other prominent measures of poverty: the supplemental poverty measure and the consumption measure, which differ from the official poverty measure on every dimension.

The supplemental poverty threshold is based on expenditures on food, clothing, shelter, and utilities, and is geographically adjusted. While the official poverty measure only counts pre-tax income as the resources available to a family, the supplemental poverty measure additionally counts refunded taxes and noncash benefits that can be used for food, cloth, shelter, and utilities, like SNAP benefits.

A third way to measure poverty is by consumption: if a family were to consume less than an adjusted poverty threshold, excluding certain expenditures, they would be considered poor. Both the consumption measure and the supplemental measure are improvements on the official poverty measure because they address whether tax and transfer policies and programs affect poverty.

Using data from , the most recent year for which we have data on all measurements, we look at how the analysis differs between the three measures. In figure 3, we compare the characteristics of individuals living in poverty by the official against the supplemental poverty measure SPM for , the most recent year of available data for both.

Acknowledging that survey respondents underreport benefit receipt, this SPM is likely to overstate the number in poverty. Nevertheless, there were almost three million fewer children in poverty by the SPM than by the official poverty measure in For a complete treatment of the status and trends of children in poverty, see a recent report by Isaac Shapiro and Danilo Trisi at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

There were more working-age adults and senior citizens in poverty by the SPM than the official poverty measure in While we cannot reproduce the working-age classifications as we report in figure 3 for the consumption measure, Bruce Meyer and James Sullivan report rates of consumption poverty in the same age-based categories as ours. By their calculation, rates of consumption poverty in were 5. By the official poverty measure in , 20 percent of children, 12 percent of working-age adults, and 9 percent of seniors were poor in Taking money from someone without an intention to pay it back is not debt.

It is theft. This budget makes it clear that we will reverse this larceny. Where the federal government is now going, Maine has led the way. But they also leave many individuals and families in extreme poverty, without anywhere to turn. His administration soon undertook dramatic safety-net reforms, with the twin aims of balancing the state budget and cutting back on aid for healthy adults. The issue has been not just principled, but personal, for the governor.

Bruce and Joan Myrick kept him busy hauling boxes. Bruce was a Pepsi-Cola truck driver. Later the governor worked at the Antoine Rubber Company and at a meat packing company. Others should do has he did, LePage has argued: Deal with their hardships and find a way to rise.

It reinstated work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents receiving food stamps. It added an asset test to both its food stamp and welfare programs; the administration said the policy was meant to disqualify people who owned things like boats and jet skis, but having a second car or truck, a lot for wood harvesting, or a retirement-savings account counted too. These reforms, along with a number of other changes, drastically reduced the amount of money the state spent on safety-net programs, as well as the number of people helped.

Maine dropped health coverage for an estimated 14, parents and 10, childless adults, with Medicaid enrollment declining by more than 70, over time. The food-stamp program shrank by more than 20 percent. The number of able-bodied adults without dependents on food stamps plummeted by more than 80 percent. The welfare program halved in size. Our focus was to not evaluate individuals through the lens of their poverty or their current circumstance, but through the lens of their potential, and to restructure these programs to be pathways out of poverty through employment.

The LePage administration cites a bevy of statistics to make its case. An analysis of state wage data found that adults that did not or could not comply with the food-stamp work requirement saw their wages go up by percent , with wages for those in compliance increasing by 20 percent.

The poverty rate and the welfare rolls subsequently shrank. People found jobs. But a strong economy and rising wages seem to have been the big factors in nudging people into the workforce, rather than the absence of benefits. Between the beginning of and the end of , the national unemployment rate dropped from 5.

In that climate, it became easier—and more attractive—to find work. It is true that the work requirements did encourage some people to get a job or get one faster, LaDonna Pavetti of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities told me. But they did not increase the overall level of employment in the medium or long term, spurring few individuals to get a job they were not already likely to get in time.

There were other consequences, and they fell hardest on those least able to deal with them. Many individuals unable or unwilling to work due to addiction issues, homelessness, health problems, domestic violence, or the simple trauma of living in extreme poverty, along with their children, ended up with no safety net at all.

Reform is now in some important ways considered a failure, Pavetti added. Furthermore, recovery from income losses is comparable to that of past periods. Overall, what stands out is how minimal changes have been over the past forty years. This confirms the Congressional Budget Office's findings that the conditions of the poorest Americans in fact improved over the very stretch that critics often identify as the incubation period for today's income inequalities.

These findings undercut the primary argument for treating income inequality as evidence of injustice. It is simply not true that the increased earnings of high-income workers generally cause some people to be poor or prevent them from improving their economic status.

In fact, successful businessmen and others in top income brackets play a significant role in enlarging the economic pie. When high-income earners find ways to increase productivity and create income, they are rewarded for their efforts.

They also help to generate more jobs and lower prices — often by re-investing the same financial rewards that their critics begrudge them — thus benefiting Americans at all income levels. In short, the scope of inequality in America is routinely and grossly exaggerated.

More important, the primary argument for the injustice of income inequality fails because the success of the rich does not harm the poor. Income inequality as such is not behind the problem of poverty. The rich, in other words, are not the reason why the poor are poor. In fact, looked at with a clearer sense of the meaning of economic justice, it is not inequality but rather the redistributionist agenda of inequality's fiercest critics that seems to run afoul of justice — for it deprives individuals of the rewards their successes warrant.

To be sure, justice requires that the rich put their fair share into the public coffers. If that's not their fair share, then what portion would be considered fair? When it comes to tax rates, there is no a priori way to determine what is fair or just. Societies need to deliberate about such questions in the context of their own circumstances and priorities — and thinking about economic justice in terms of income inequality is not conducive to such deliberation. Excessive levels of taxation not only punish the success or good fortune of high earners, but also undermine the common good by hindering economic growth, which hits the poor harder than any other group.

Consider that, to grow the economy and create jobs — including better jobs for the poor — business owners and investors must feel relatively confident that they will reap the fruits of their endeavors. Punitive levels of taxation undermine that confidence and discourage innovation and investment. In one recent study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, researchers concluded that increasing marginal tax rates would substantially reduce investment by entrepreneurs.

Similar evidence abounds. Yet those who call for higher taxes on top earners and corporations sometimes seem to assume that income can be redistributed without these negative effects. Moreover, to achieve strict economic equality, government would need to intervene in people's private decisions to a degree that would make even some of the most ardent equalizers uncomfortable. Strict equality would require the state to regulate income creation and prevent some people from obtaining advantages over others — for example, by attending private schools or otherwise benefiting from parents' investments of time and money in their development.

Where governments tried to enforce strict equality in the past, as in socialist and communist regimes throughout the 20 th century, power became more concentrated in the hands of a few government officials while material equality and prosperity among the general population remained elusive. In addition to being widely unpopular, such interventions would also be exceedingly inefficient, because different people value different things money, land, physical health, travel, consumer goods, comfort, and so forth in different ways.

And government necessarily lacks the ability to know the relative degrees to which citizens value these goods. Consider the example of a government-run health-insurance program that forces private options out of the market and dictates which medical procedures are and are not covered. Under this hypothetical program, all citizens with bad knees are treated equally, and the costs of knee-replacement surgeries are covered. This provision pleases Peter, who lives for walking outdoors.

But what about Paul, whose life doesn't revolve around physical activity? Paul prefers to sit at his computer and read articles online and use the internet to communicate with his family and friends. Paul deems a treatment for arthritis in his hands — a treatment that isn't covered by the hypothetical government-run health plan — more valuable than knee-replacement surgery.

In this scenario, does providing Peter and Paul with the same health insurance improve their health and the quality of their lives equally? Broadly speaking, would imposing plans that improve individuals' health unequally be just? In the case of health insurance, as in so many others, reducing justice to equal treatment leaves no room for choices that might allow for a diversity of preferences — and so inflicts injustice rather than ameliorating it.

Focusing on economic inequality also distracts from the legitimate goal of helping those who need extra help to thrive. It identifies justice with looking over one's shoulder at how others are doing.

But viewing our neighbors as rivals does not simply reinforce the false notion that income is a zero-sum game: It also subtly cultivates a desire for those neighbors not to perform better than we do. This is not just or conducive to a healthy civic spirit; it is merely envy. Moreover, if the size of the income gap is really the central moral issue in our economic life, the attempt to close the gap through redistribution would require decreasing the amount of income at the top.

To see how this can be morally problematic when it comes to income, we can examine the equivalent in other realms. Imagine, for instance, a doctor who aimed to narrow the "health gap" between his sick and healthy patients — by making his healthy patients a little less healthy. Or consider a therapist who aimed to narrow the "happiness gap" among his clientele by making his happiest clients less happy.

Not only would we refrain from calling these schemes just, we would condemn them as morally perverse. The proper goals in these realms are to help all people get healthier and happier, with special attention to assisting those who are critically sick or depressed. The same logic applies to income.

Just as we don't help the sick by injuring the fit, we don't help the poor by soaking the rich. When it comes to income, inequality is largely a distraction.

We should be focusing on improving the prosperity and well-being of all — with special attention to helping the poor escape their poverty.

In a market economy underwritten by the rule of law, the gap between rich and poor is not itself the source of injustice. The real problems have to do with underlying factors that impede success, stifle opportunity, and foster unhealthy dependence on government. If our goal is to help people in need, we can better achieve it by identifying and targeting the sources of true material deprivation. In cases of real injustice — for example, where students are trapped in failing schools or corrupt officials misuse public resources — we should focus public attention on finding effective remedies.

How, then, can we foster a national conversation focused more directly on helping those in need rather than on income inequality? One place to start is by making sure we talk about others as fellow citizens or neighbors, rather than as targets of envy or victims of greed. We should care about the condition of the poor because we want our fellow citizens to thrive, not because we resent those who have done especially well for themselves. We should be moved by compassion, not bitterness; we should want to help the poor make something of the great benefits and advantages of our free society, rather than to limit the ability of the wealthy to do so.

Reframing the debate about poverty can help us shift moral attention back where it belongs: to changing conditions that hinder economic mobility and to helping all citizens — especially the poor — improve their lives.

Changing the focus of the conversation is the responsibility of leaders in civil society and government alike. This debate touches our core sense of what justice and human equality are all about, and those intuitions are formed by parents, teachers, and other moral leaders.

Religious leaders especially have the opportunity to shape public notions of justice, human dignity, envy, compassion, and mutual responsibility.

But elected government officials also have a stake in this effort. By virtue of their public voice, political leaders can direct us toward either healthy or unhealthy points of focus.

It is crucial that the political gatekeepers of our financial debates in particular — including the president and congressional leaders — distinguish between income inequality and the true sources of poverty and injustice. An improved conversation about poverty should lead to public policies that promote overall economic growth while providing an effective safety net for those who truly need it. Such an approach would reverse the push for government redistribution that stifles investment and job creation.

Instead, it would promote effective pro-growth policies such as cutting government spending, easing onerous regulations on businesses, and reducing tax rates to improve incentives to produce. Good public policy would also reform government-run welfare programs along the lines of the welfare reforms, which reduced dependence on government services and contributed to a historic drop in child poverty.

Entitlement spending would also be reined in and better targeted to people who truly need help.