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Helping Keep the Mysterious Mysterious Since 1973

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From The Upshot in the NYT:

Growth Has Been Good for Decades. So Why Hasn’t Poverty Declined?
JUNE 4, 2014
Neil Irwin
@Neil_Irwin

The surest way to fight poverty is to achieve stronger economic growth. That, anyway, is a view embedded in the thinking of a lot of politicians and economists.

“The federal government,” Paul Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman, wrote in The Wall Street Journal, “needs to remember that the best anti-poverty program is economic growth,” which is not so different from the argument put forth by John F. Kennedy (in a somewhat different context) that “a rising tide lifts all boats.”

In Kennedy’s era, that had the benefit of being true. From 1959 to 1973, the nation’s economy per person grew 82 percent, and that was enough to drive the proportion of the poor population from 22 percent to 11 percent.

But over the last generation in the United States, that simply hasn’t happened. Growth has been pretty good, up 147 percent per capita. But rather than decline further, the poverty rate has bounced around in the 12 to 15 percent range — higher than it was even in the early 1970s. The mystery of why — and how to change that — is one of the most fundamental challenges in the nation’s fight against poverty.

As you should have come to expect by now, a search of the article for the text string “immigra” comes up with zero hits.

This trend might have something to do with this piece from Pew Research:

The U.S. Hispanic population has increased sixfold since 1970
BY ANNA BROWN

The U.S. Hispanic population in 2012 was 53,027,708, nearly six times the population in 1970.

In turn, that interacts with another Pew Research headline:

Hispanic Poverty Rate Highest In New Supplemental Census Measure

 

14 Comments to "Helping Keep the Mysterious Mysterious Since 1973"

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  1. The author doesn’t consider it, but maybe it was the Great Society programs that caused this. Why would employers have increased pay for the lowest 20% of workers, when the federal gov’t was already covering many of their expenses?

    This would explain why the number of poor stayed constant, since gov’t benefits cannot differentiate the deserving and the undeserving. So they do not encourage changes in behavior, as wages do.

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  2. I read the article, and one question that I had was, how does one define “poverty?” Has the standard remained the same since 1959? How does the quality of life of a person “in poverty” in 2014 compare to the same person in, say 1959? 1979?

    That said, my other reaction is the famous comment that “the average colour of a rainbow is white.” If you mix in heterogeneous data, produce a location statistic such as the mean, or percentage above (or below) some arbitrary point, and report a figure, you are potentially missing an enormous amount of information.

    As Steve points out, one cannot really examine these data without looking at other confounding factors. How many people whose roots in the US (or, some other first-world country) are in poverty now compare to then? And, is it sensible to presume that tens of millions of people can migrate to a country with an increasingly complex economy – the overwhelming majority have little to no education or skill – and that that will have no effect on “poverty” however one chooses to define it?

    This is one problem I have with the argument that we “need” millions of unskilled immigrants to keep our economy growing. Those who fill the lower rungs of the ladder will almost surely *always* be “poor” if their ranks are constantly refreshed, absent a very, very heavy government hand on the tiller. There, frankly, is no incentive – at all – for their wages to go up.

  3. A really good point, and one the media suppresses.

    Thing is, things the liberals like to point out like globalization and the collapse of unions also play a role too. It’s a matter of both/and, not either/or, just like the collapse was the result of Republicans loosening the rules on banks *and* Democrats forcing minority loans through the CRA.

  4. Check out this article from the pew website also:

    http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/05/27/a-shift-from-germany-to-mexico-for-americas-immigrants/

    It has 2 great maps, 1 from 1910 and 1 from 2010 of what country of origin the top immigrants are from, and in 1910 there a variety of coutnries, in 2010 the majority of states, only one country of origin!

    How are pro-”undocumented” immigration advocates and libs calling this diversity!

    And btw I’m a product of non-white legal immigration and like alot of us (legal immigrants that it is) are totally against illegal immigration!

    Unfortuantly the white nationalist/supremacist slant and inane arguments used have turned alot of us off and we are having a hard time trying to join hands with present movemnts against a truly pressing problem!

    Position is pro-immigration (moderated that is) with more diversity of countries of origin and a more balanced skilled vs unskilled (we need both, they just don’t have to come from all one country!)

  5. “Hispanic population increases” by Anita Brown? You made that up, right

  6. Steve,

    One of the reasons that the poverty rate doesn’t decline – along with immigration, of course – is the government continually redefines “poverty.” What is consider poverty today was lower middle class to even middle class in the 1970s. The government uses income of the poor, not consumption. I mean, if you define poverty as earning 25% of the median income, you’ll never eliminate poverty – and thus will continue to need massive government programs.

    You’ve hit the nail on the head many times before when you say that the problems of the poor aren’t so much lack of material goods, it’s that they have to live around other poor people. And that’s where the massive Hispanic immigration has been so brutal. It’s brought in a lot more poor people to live around.

  7. I think it’s called Simpson’s paradox.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox

    It would be interesting to look at the poverty rate for non-Hispanic whites over the past few decades.

  8. @DWBudd,

    You are absolutely correct. Those living in “poverty” today have luxuries that would make the rich of the 1960s gasp. People treat the poverty rate is if it’s some kind of scientific measurement, when it’s no more than a political tool used to justify government intervention.

  9. Nonwhite and a legal immigrant -

    With 330 million people, America “needs” ZERO immigrants. If anything, it DESPERATELY needs about 100 million fewer parasites. Yes, we all know Asian immigrants and their promoters love to harp on “smarter immigrants” since the White American population is so incredibly lazy and stupid – I mean, just look at what a wreck of a country they built until all that diversity arrived post 1965. Since I don’t promote violence, I shall not specify what I’d love to do to you and your ilk.

  10. says:
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    If they didn’t keep increasing the poverty threshold and importing poor people then HHS, HUD and all their acolytes would be out of business. Read Victor Davis Hanson for some perspective on how poverty and the poor have changed in central Calif over the generations.

  11. says:
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    How does the quality of life of a person “in poverty” in 2014 compare to the same person in, say 1959? 1979?

    Unfavorably. The whole “Color TVs and Computers” argument is bunk.

    In 1959 you didn’t have to live near the blacks of 2014. Or, the blacks of 1959, for that matter.

  12. says:
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    The issue is perplexing; a real head-scratcher.
    A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, if there ever was one.

  13. RE: 10. Shelia

    ” Since I don’t promote violence, I shall not specify what I’d love to do to you and your ilk.”

    Case in point the racist/white nationalists I was talking about. Steve I hope your views are not reflective of Sheila’s here. Btw Shelia your statement sounds like a violent threat, so lets not be coy and say you “don’t promote violence”.

    This is why the immigration issue won’t get reigned in, if this racist element is continually allowed to bray and speak, instead of the legitimate rational issues of the movement being promoted and non-white americans who support immigration restriction will actually feel that can sympathize to support it.

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