On Tuesday, the Census Bureau released its annual
poverty report declaring that 43.1 million Americans lived in poverty in 2015.
We should be concerned about any American living in
real material hardship, but much of what the Census reports about poverty is
misleading.
Here are 15 facts about poverty in America that may
surprise you. (All statistics are taken
from U.S. government surveys.)
Poor households routinely report spending $2.40 for
every $1 of income the Census says they have.
The average poor American lives in a house or
apartment that is in good repair and has more living space than the average
nonpoor person in France, Germany, or England.
The 1960s riots were blamed on poverty and discrimination. Poverty and discrimination were worse in the South than in the rest of the country, but riots were not nearly so common there. Detroit’s deadliest riot occurred at a time when the median income of black families in Detroit was 95 percent of their white counterparts, plus the black unemployment rate was 3.4 percent and black homeownership was higher than in other major cities.
Academics teach that the breakdown of the black family is the legacy of slavery and discrimination. They ignore the following facts.
In 1950, 72 percent of black men and 81 percent of black women had been married. Also, only 17 percent of black children lived in single-parent households; today it’s close to 70 percent. Every census from 1890 to 1950 showed that black labor force participation rates exceeded those of whites. During the late 1940s, the unemployment rate for black 16- and 17-year-olds was less than that for white teens.
According to the 1938 Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, that year 11 percent of black children and 3 percent of white children were born to unwed mothers. Before 1960, the number of teenage pregnancies had been decreasing; both poverty and dependency were declining; and black income was rising in both absolute and relative terms to white income. As late as 1965, 75 percent of black children were born to married women. Today, over 73 percent of black babies are born to unwed mothers. Again, so much for the “legacy of slavery” argument.
Academics teach that school integration is a necessary condition for black academic excellence. Blacks, their logic implies, cannot achieve academic excellence unless they go out and capture a white kid to sit next to their kids. Public charter schools such as those in the Knowledge Is Power Program, or KIPP, and Success Academy Charter Schools are having some successes without race mixing.
Sowell points out that only 39 percent of students in New York state schools who were tested recently scored at the “proficient” level in math, but 100 percent of the students at the Crown Heights Success Academy scored at that level in math. Blacks and Hispanics are 90 percent of the students in the Crown Heights Success Academy.
More than 43,000 families are on waiting lists to get their children into charter schools. Teachers unions are opposed to any alternative to public education and contribute to politicians who place obstacles and restrictions on the expansion of charter schools. The NAACP, at its 2016 national convention in Cincinnati, voted to support “a moratorium on the proliferation of privately managed charter schools.”
It’s easy to understand why the NAACP is against any alternative to public schools. Many of its members work in public education. However, many of those people do want alternatives for themselves.
In Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, 25 percent of public school teachers send their children to private schools. In Philadelphia, 44 percent of teachers send their children to private schools. The percentages are similar in several other cities: Cincinnati, 41 percent; Chicago, 39 percent; and Rochester, New York, 38 percent. This demonstrates the dishonesty, hypocrisy, and arrogance of the elite. They effectively say, “One thing for thee and another for me.”
Eighty-five percent of poor households have air
conditioning.
Nearly three-fourths of poor households have a car
or truck, and 31 percent have two or more cars or trucks.
Nearly two-thirds of poor households have cable or
satellite TV.
Half have a personal computer; 43 percent have
internet access.
Two-thirds have at least one DVD player
More than half of poor families with children have
a video game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation.
One-third have a wide-screen plasma or LCD TV.
(The above data on electronic appliances owned by
poor households come from a 2009 government survey so the ownership rates among
the poor today are most likely higher.)
Poverty and Hunger
Activist groups spread alarming stories about
widespread hunger in the nation, but in reality, most of the poor do not
experience hunger or food shortages. The U.S. Department of Agriculture
collects data on these topics in its household food security survey. For 2009,
the survey showed:
Only 4 percent of poor parents reported that their
children were hungry even once during the prior year because they could not
afford food.
Some 18 percent of poor adults reported they were
hungry even once in the prior year due to lack of money for food.
Poverty and Housing
The following are facts about the housing
conditions of the poor.
Poverty and homelessness are sometimes confused. Over
the course of a year, only 4 percent of poor persons become homeless (usually a
temporary condition).
Only 9.5 percent of the poor live in mobile homes
or trailers; the rest live in apartments or houses.
Forty percent of the poor own their own homes,
typically, a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths that is in good
repair.
Facts About Extreme Poverty
The left claims that one in 25 families with
children live in “extreme poverty” on less than $2 per person per day.
Government surveys of self-reported spending by families show the actual number
is one in 4,469, not one in 25. The
typical family allegedly in “extreme poverty” reports spending $25 for every $1
of income the left claims they have.
In Calculating Poverty, Census Ignores the Almost
Entire Welfare State
Why does the Census identify so many individuals as
“poor” who do not appear to be poor in any normal sense of the term? The answer lies in the misleading way the
Census measures “poverty.” The Census defines a family as poor if its income
falls below a specified income threshold. (For example, the poverty threshold
for a family of four in 2015 was $24,036.) But in counting “income,” the Census
excludes nearly all welfare benefits.
In 2014, government spent over $1 trillion on
means-tested welfare for poor and low income people. (This figure does not
include Social Security or Medicare.) Welfare spending on cash, food, and
housing was $342 billion.
The cash, food, and housing spending alone was 150
percent of the amount needed to eliminate all poverty in the U.S. But the
Census ignored more than four-fifths of these benefits for purposes of
measuring poverty. Effectively, the Census counts poverty in the U.S. by
ignoring almost the entire welfare state.
Poverty and Self-Sufficiency
Do the higher living standards of families
receiving welfare mean the welfare state is successful? The answer is no. The real aim of welfare should be to make
families self-sufficient: capable of supporting themselves above the poverty
income threshold without reliance on government welfare aid.
Despite having spent over $25 trillion on
means-tested welfare since the beginning of the War on Poverty under President
Lyndon Johnson, many Americans are less capable of self-sufficiency today than
when the War on Poverty began.
The pathways to self-sufficiency are work and
marriage. We should reform the welfare state to promote these. Able-bodied
recipients should be required to work or prepare for work as a condition of
getting aid. Penalties against marriage in welfare programs should be removed.
Let’s make welfare a hand-up, not a handout.
The Daily Signal
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