Poverty level under Obama breaks 50-year record

[Alan C.]

Poverty level under Obama breaks 50-year record

About 50 million Americans live below the poverty line, which the federal government defined in 2012 as an annual income of $23,492 for a family of four.President Obama’s anti-poverty efforts "are basically to give more people more free stuff...". . .In spite of the administration’s anti-poverty efforts, however, the government reported this week that poverty by some measures has been worse under Mr. Obama than it was under President George W. Bush. The U.S. Census Bureau reported that 31.6 percent of Americans were in poverty for at least two months from 2009 to 2011, a 4.5 percentage point increase over the pre-recession period of 2005 to 2007.Of the 37.6 million people who were poor at the beginning of 2009, 26.4 percent remained in poverty throughout the next 34 months, the report said. Another 12.6 million people escaped poverty during that time, but 13.5 million more fell into poverty.. . ."We’ve spent $20.7 trillion on means-tested aid since that time, and the poverty rate is pretty much exactly where it was in the mid-1960s," he said.. . ....too many government anti-poverty programs still discourage marriage, factoring into statistics that show more than four in 10 children are born to unmarried parents."When the war on poverty started, about 6 percent of children were born outside of marriage," he said. "Today that’s 42 percent — catastrophe."

 

The purpose of the so-called 'war on poverty' was never to reduce poverty; it was to create an entrenched, political constituency (both in the bureaucracy and among recipients of the largesse). It has succeeded at that spectacularly.

 

Under Obama, Youth Misery Index Hits All-Time High

 

Youth unemployment in 2013 was 16.3 percent, and student loan debt came in at a record-breaking average of $29,400 last year, the foundation points out; what’s more, each person’s share of the roughly $17 trillion dollar national debt stands at its highest level ever: $52,948.

 

. . .

 

The foundation added 16.3, which represents youth unemployment, with 29.4 – the average 4-year- college loan debt – and 52.9, each person’s national debt burden, to generate its 2013 figure of 98.6.

[aeonicentity]

well, the statistics you cite are 'true' in the sense that all statistics are 'true'.

 

But like so much more in statism, the true story is MUCH more interesting.

 

To begin:

Poverty is an arbitrary distinction. You're only as poor as you feel. We imagine and artificially create poverty as a statistic to track things we THINK are important. For some reason we have it in our heads that income == wealth. Therefore: NOT income == poverty . This assutmption, is totally untrue. many people earn great gobs of money, but their expenses make them functionally poor. Many people have wealth, but don't have income. The US poverty statistic is based off of income, and is therefore, the shittiest means of measure for the poverty or wealth of Americans.

 

But wait, there's more!

 

in addition, the 'poverty line' has moved upwards ever since its inception. Not only do we have no idea about what the statistic of income level actually means, but we also have no idea what the defenition of poor is! For example, if I had a ride, and a crowd of evenly distributed 0 to 16 year olds and said "You must be four or younger to enter", about a quarter of the people in line crowd could ride that ride. However, if I said the next time the ride came around "You must be EIGHT or younger to enter" the ride population would double.

 

The exact same thing has been done to the poverty line. just in the last 12 years its been shifted up, almost 50%! So of course poverty is increasing in America, increasingly more people are considered 'poor'! And what's worse, is that the distribution isn't even. The rate of growth actually grows more exponentially the further up you move the poverty line.

 

http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/01poverty.htm

http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/13poverty.cfm

 

So lets begin by dispelling the illusion. Poverty in America, is entirely imagined. There are very few actually poor people. When people are truely poor, they lack resources to even live a basic life. This absolutely doesn't happen on the imagined scale social planners would have you believe. this year, roughly 24 people will die of starvation in the US. 24. TWENTY-FOUR. Its safe to say we've erradicated starvation in America. Hunger however unfortunately still happens. But how do so many people in America go hungry, but not starve? Two reasons.

 

1) Hunger in America is never cronic. Largely thanks to capitalism (producing both jobs and affordable, year round foods) and charity (both private and governmental).

2) Hunger in America is much better than hunger in Afganistan. Here we consider children to be 'going hungry' when school lunches are the only meals they're served. While this is unfortunate, this means American children constistantly eat 10 meals a week on minimum. This is more than enough to survive.

 

So if life is so much better now than before, and the poverty rate hasn't gone up except that the government made it, why do they wan't us to think we're poorer now than before? Doesn't that foster disastisfaction?

 

Wrong. It fosters dependence. By redefining poverty as higher and higher incomes, they'll slowly errode previously wealthy people into 'poverty' even if they were getting richer before they were redefined as 'poor'. They'll look to the government to right this wrong as they have in the past, and thus dies freedom.

[fractional slacker]

We all know the poverty has become a buzz word for the right to steal from the producers in order to bribe the takers. Poverty has no objective definition. Furthermore, income transfers (welfare) are not even counted as income. If you look at stats from the consumption side (retail sales), poverty is basically non existent compared to less advanced places in the world. .

[Guest Exceptionalist]

We all know the poverty has become a buzz word for the right to steal from the producers in order to bribe the takers. Poverty has no objective definition. Furthermore, income transfers (welfare) are not even counted as income. 

 

 

 

Yeah, they are counted as transfer income which means if welfare income would be higher than the earnings of the low wage tax cattle, poverty was significantly lower, but it is excluded from the sample.

[EmperorNero]

Good stuff, aeonicentity. Most people who whine about "poverty" equivocate to the point of making meaningless statements. They talk about relative poverty as if it were absolute poverty, and they don't know the distinction between income and wealth. They do know with certainty though that we need more statism to fix it.

 

To be fair to Obama though, rising relative poverty is largely a consequence of all the money printing. Additional billions in the hands of the rich raise the percentage where we consider people poor. They don't necessarily have less physical wealth.