Tags
Census Bureau, data, economy, Following Up, poverty, statistics
Do you recognize the (screamingly obvious) wisdom of the well known adage, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”? (Many different versions from many different sources are on record, as described here.)
If you do, you’re far smarter than most of the left-center supposed experts and mainstream journalists who have bewailing what they call the rise in American poverty rates they believe was revealed in recent official data, and that they blame on the expiration of pandemic-era economic relief programs. (See, e.g., here and here.)
The story began with the Census Bureau’s release two weeks ago of its annual Poverty in the United States report. The main findings seized upon by the aforementioned analysts and news people were that, “The poverty rate rose to 12.4 percent in 2022 from 7.8 percent in 2021, the largest one-year jump on record,” and that “Poverty among children more than doubled, to 12.4 percent, from a record low of 5.2 percent the year before.” In addition:
“These poverty increases were also a casualty of the inflationary shock, but an even more important upward driver of poverty was the policy choice to allow the pandemic-era expansions to the safety net to expire. In particular, the expiration of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) expansions was particularly damaging to child poverty.”
Or, in the words of a popular meme on X (the former Twitter), “Cutting anti-poverty programs increases poverty (duh).”
But these claims make sense only you (senselessly) believe that the “fish” proverb quoted in the lead has no importance. Because evidently behind them is the view that poverty is purely a function of an individual’s or household’s income levels no matter where these resources originate, and even if many and even most of them come from government largesse (“giving a man a fish”). Hence the apparent conviction that increasing or decreasing these official payments can lift folks out of or plunge them into poverty.
As made clear in the Census release, the federal government buys this argument, too. For the headline poverty indicator it’s been using since 2011 is one that treats as income “many government programs that are designed to assist low-income families but are not included” in its older poverty gauge. In other words, Americans are no longer defined as “poor” even if they largely remain wards of the government.
I’m sure that all people of good will agree that those who can’t provide adequately for themselves deserve the public assistance required to lead decent lives. But doesn’t a much better definition of escaping poverty entail the ability to prosper without such aid? And therefore wouldn’t an anti-poverty program, or simple anti-poverty spending, worthy of the name focus on enabling recipients to achieve independence from government handouts where possible (“teach them how to fish”)?
Somewhat depressingly, I wrote about this confusion about poverty nearly eight years ago. What a shame that the learning curve of so many poverty analysts has been so shallow – especially for aid recipients victimized by the belief that all that’s needed for anti-poverty programs that work is a sufficient amount of money.