Anti-Poverty Programs Are a Success
Percent of people in poverty dropped from 26% to 16% since 1967, with big impact in Wisconsin.
Speaker Ryan and other conservatives are calling for sweeping changes that would seriously weaken safety net programs, and a core argument for those changes is way off the mark.
In early June, Ryan and other House Republicans issued a report about reforming public assistance programs that contends that despite decades of substantial federal spending for safety net programs, “the official poverty rate in 2014 (14.8%) was no better than it was in 1966 (14.7%), when many of these programs started.”
At first blush, that sounds like a compelling argument, but it’s a red herring. Speaker Ryan’s claim is based on the official poverty measure, which seems logical. But that gauge of poverty, established by the Census Bureau in the 1960s, measures cash income only and excludes many forms of public assistance. As the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities points out about this poverty measure:
“…it ignores virtually all anti-poverty assistance created or expanded over the past half century, while counting the main form of assistance cut sharply over this period – cash assistance for families with children. You can’t learn anything about the efficacy of most anti-poverty programs by using a measure that doesn’t count them.”
The Census Bureau has devised an alternative measure of poverty (called the supplemental poverty measure) that captures more fully the effects of public assistance. That yardstick for measuring poverty does account for noncash forms of public assistance, including the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), housing subsidies, food stamps (SNAP), school lunch programs, low income home energy assistance, Women Infants and Children (WIC) coupons, and child tax credits. (It also captures certain costs, like taxes, that are not included in the official measure.)
The supplemental poverty measure paints a very different picture of poverty in America. Columbia University researchers have calculated the impact of noncash benefits on the rate of poverty, concluding that when noncash benefits are factored into the measurement of a household’s income, the percent of people living in poverty fell from 26% in 1967 to 16% in 2012. The chart below, which illustrates that trend and compares the two different measures of poverty, shows clearly the large, positive impact of the noncash safety net in reducing the impoverished portion of the population.
Poverty Has Fallen Significantly Since the 1960s Under the “Anchored” Supplemental Poverty Measure
Looking specifically at Wisconsin, an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities also shows the importance of safety net programs. They calculate that:
“Federal and state safety net programs lift an estimated 830,000 Wisconsinites above the poverty line each year, reducing the poverty rate from 24.0 percent (before counting government benefits and taxes) to 9.2 percent. Many are children: the safety net lifts roughly 180,000 Wisconsin children above the poverty line, reducing the child poverty rate from 22.4 percent to 8.7 percent.”
Public assistance programs aren’t perfect, and it’s definitely worth looking at ways that they can be improved to lift more people out of poverty and ensure that people who are willing to work hard have a way of climbing into the middle class. A sensible improvement that has been recommended by the President, Senator Baldwin, and also Speaker Ryan, is to significantly increase the meager Earned Income Tax Credit now provided to childless adults with low-wage jobs.
We appreciate that Speaker Ryan has been willing to talk about poverty programs and ideas for improving them. However, by using a measure that excludes most of the government’s poverty-reduction investments, he sets back the public discourse about the effectiveness of current programs.
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This is a false metric if you’re trying to move people out of poverty. You can’t just add government benefits to a persons income and say they’re not poor anymore. If they were no longer poor, they wouldn’t need the benefits. The whole idea is to both help and encourage people to find ways out of poverty… not merely to help them survive in poverty (which is an important first step).
This is another editorial in Urban Milwaukee presented as a news story (no indication it is an editorial). On top of it all, it is written by a partisan group without any byline clearly stating their bias. Very shady journalistic ethics by Urban Milwaukee. Please tell us Bruce Murphy how Urban Milwaukee is not biased and is ethical in presenting Wisconsin Budget Project’s opinion without any indication that is an editorial by a biased, partisan entity.
As to the content- I agree that we should possibly increase the earned income tax credit. But at the same time we should put limitations on aid for able-bodied adults that do not actively seek employment or educational opportunities. This is something leftist Wisconsin Budget Project is against. They want to spend more on aid with no strings attached and thus making it easier to stay in poverty.
AG, if you give someone that is hungry/starving a meal… are they not fed?
Bill: Are you joking? The only part of that that can be construed as opinion are a few sentences in the last two paragraphs.
This article is factual through and through and if you can’t see that, that reflects a deep bias on YOUR part.
It appears you are working hard to maintain the notorious conservative bubble that protects you from reality and facts.
AG’s not looking for a metric that reflects actual living conditions.
He’s looking for a measure that shows how much it’s their fault because their lazy, as evidenced by the fact that they’re poor, which isn’t circular logic at all. They should be more like the super-wealthy CEO’s who play golf all day and definitely aren’t lazy. Playing golf is tough.
This measure that uses “numbers” and “quantities” and “actual needs and resources” clearly doesn’t reflect that.
Tim, yes definitely. And like I said, that’s the important first step is to make sure people are fed, clothed, and housed. Next step is to try to help them get to the point where they can feed, cloth, and find shelter for themselves when possible.
Helping the poor to live and to live in dignity doesn’t make them not poor anymore… ultimately we should have a goal of moving as many people out of poverty, not just helping them while they are in poverty. The authors contention is that if we make life livable for the poor, they’re no longer poor. I disagree with that.
Jack, do you need me to run through all your fallacies or do you want to do the honors?
Oh AG please do run through all my fallacies. I’m in the mood to be entertained.
Happyjack- Apparently you are too deep down the rabbit hole. The following is not an opinion? “Speaker Ryan and other conservatives are calling for sweeping changes that would seriously weaken safety net programs, and a core argument for those changes is way off the mark”. Tell us Happyjack that the last part of the sentence is “factual”.
My suggestion is Urban Milwaukee publish a similar weekly “factual news column” by the NRA about the benefits of guns in society.
Please itemize them, name them, provide a link to a reputable source about fallacies, and explain why each is fallacious.
Why guns Bill? This is about economics right, so wouldn’t say Wisconsin Club for Growth be more appropriate?
Bill: The last part of the sentence is “factual”. The author goes on to explain how Speaker Ryan used a measure that “measures cash income only and excludes many forms of public assistance”, making it quite literally “off the mark”.
That’s the whole point of the article, in case you missed it. I said in case – clearly you did miss it.
Jack, I don’t have time for all that… but here’s the first ones that come to mind..
Red Herring, Affective Fallacy, Appeal to Bias, Appeal to Motives, Ad Hominem, False Analogy (which was already based on a Red Herring), basically the entire thing is a Non-Sequitur… I could probably go on, but I’d have to go back to remind myself of some more obscure ones.
Nice to know you’d like to have a real discussion of the issues though… (sarcasm, if you missed it)
DUH! Forgot straw man…
AG, are you looking for a metric that reflects actual living conditions?
Jack, by asking that question I think you’re finally on the cusp of understanding my point. Ryan sees measuring poverty as the rate in which people can earn enough themselves to live. The author here is measuring poverty at the rate in which people earn enough to live through both their own income plus government assistance.
The metrics in this piece are valid and important. They just don’t measure the same thing that Ryan is talking about, which is the ultimate goal of being able to move people from needing government assistance to a place where they can be self reliant and no longer need the government in order to stay out of poverty.
Alright, before evaluating these things i should preface that when looking for fallacies, _imnplicit_ meaning is fair game. With the caveat that
it has to be an actual implied meaning and the assumption of good faith and benefit of doubt is given to the opponent. a mischaracterization of your opponents position to claim a fallacy is itself a fallacy.
Red herring –
* definition: Attempting to redirect the argument to another issue that to which the person doing the redirecting can better respond. While it is similar to the avoiding the issue fallacy, the red herring is a deliberate diversion of attention with the intention of trying to abandon the original argument.
* hmm… ill give you that
Appeal to bias
* definition: An appeal to bias is a fallacy that occurs when an assertion is discredited because of the asserter’s (supposed) bias.
* was an assertion discredited? Nope.
Appeal to motives
* Nope. this would be redundant with appeal to bias anyways
Affective fallacy
* definition: not a real fallacy
Ad hominem
* definition: there are three forms: abusive, circumstantial, and you as well.
* abusive – nope
* circumstantial – nope
* you as well -nope
false analogy
* not even close
non-sequitor
* definition: When the conclusion does not follow from the premises. In more informal reasoning, it can be when what is presented as evidence or reason is irrelevant or adds very little support to the conclusion.
* so there are two ways this can be interpreted: as a formal fallacy where a conclusion does not follow from the premises, or an informal one that’s just another name for “fallacy of irrelevance”
* formal: definitely not
* informal: ok, but redundant with red herring
straw man –
* A straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent’s argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not advanced by that opponent.
* ok, i’ll give you that
so you got:
* red herring
* straw man
Looks like you were a bit over-zealous.
Nonetheless, you got me. I was careless.
i might give you appeal to motive and ad hominem circumstantial, too.
Regarding Ryan’s poverty plan, yes, this is the New York Times, so there will be skepticism from some, but even the American Enterprise Institute says it lacks specifics and needs improvement. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/15/us/politics/paul-ryan-republicans-poverty.html
The article focuses on the specific claim:
“… that contends that despite decades of substantial federal spending for safety net programs, “the official poverty rate in 2014 (14.8%) was no better than it was in 1966 (14.7%), when many of these programs started.”
and provides evidence that this claim is false.
“…it ignores virtually all anti-poverty assistance created or expanded over the past half century, while counting the main form of assistance cut sharply over this period – cash assistance for families with children”
There is no evidence that the claim is false, there is only evidence that the author sees a different way to measure it.
If you believe that someone is no longer poor if you count their government assistance, then you agree with the author. If you believe that someone is still poor when they receive government assistance to raise their standard of living, and that to not be poor their income would need to be raised above poverty level, then the author’s metric is not correct.
Jack, your logical fallacy arguments are easily refutable and I could apply each one of those I listed. However, I’m here to discuss how we measure poverty levels, not discuss logical fallacies.
If an argument has a fallacy in it then it must be thrown out.
You cannot have a productive disccussion about anything – including poverty levels – if fallacies are allowed to go unchecked.
So please do refute my “logical fallacy arguments”.
The author provides copious evidence that the claim is false.
Firstly:
* it ignores virtually all anti-poverty assistance created or expanded over the past half century
* while counting the main form of assistance cut sharply over this period – cash assistance for families with children
There is no opinion or deliberation as to which measure is the correct measure to use. Economics does not involve just one form of stored value. Economics is the total value of all assets and liabilities, etc.
This is not up for debate. It is well established and obvious.
Much more evidence is provided in the NYT article Vincent linked to, from quite a variety of sources.
Your refusal to acknowledge it does not make it go away.
It looks quite clearly that Republicans used the same juvenille bullying tactics that they always do:
* take funding away from something
* say its not working (which is really their fault)
* argue that more funding should be taken away on account of it.
Only difference is instead of taking away they changed the form of it – from cash to non-cash. And now they’re trying to not count the non-cash to argue that it hasn’t seen improvement.
Okay, then subtract the cash from the left side. They don’t do that.
They use the same pattern with everything, it’s their modus operandi. The telltale sign of a bully. Hit the dude, laugh at them for being down. Then kick them while they’re down because they deserve it because they’re obviously week because they’re down.
All it is is aggression and trying to feel good about oneself by putting others down.
Trying to make your complete lack of any real actionable policies look good by trying to make others look bad.
It’s selfish and irresponsible.
Jack, it’s really hard to have a discussion with you because you only read what you want to read. I’ll try again… As I mentioned already, the SPM is an important tool to measure the number of people living below a certain level, and ensuring people aren’t caught below that point. But the OPM is still important and the more relative measurement in Ryan’s case, because it measures actual family income before (most) benefits.
In a perfect society, everyone would earn enough money to not need government assistance. Would you agree with that?
If you agree, and we wanted to make that a goal, how would we measure that goal? We certainly wouldn’t use the SPM because it includes the government assistance that we’re hoping to no longer need.
The caveat being, as you mentioned, is that OPM includes cash subsidies in it’s measurement. But as far as I understand, this would be things such as social security income and disability. It seems logical to me that it should be included.
you’re putting the cart before the horse.
If everyone made above the poverty level then there would be no chart. it would just be a flat line at zero.
Yes, but I was saying that would be the goal, not the starting place.
As a side note, I’m having a hard time finding what all the “cash” benefits were that are included in the OPM. I do know, as stated before, that social security and that sort of thing is included… but I can’t definitively say I know all sources. Thus, I partially retract my statement earlier, there may indeed be sources we should remove from the OPM for an accurate picture.
My whole point goes back to the last line on page 6 of the republicans “A Better Way” policy document on poverty. It says we should “…start measuring success in terms of how many people get out of
poverty instead of how many people collect benefits from these programs.”
As illustrated above by Happyjack, some on the left’s approach to political debate is to shut down discussion of issues by defining their opinions as fact. Thereby, attempting to discredit any dissenting opinions as being false and without merit for further discussion (man-made global warming is one such issue).
The title of this editorial is “ANTI-POVERTY PROGRAMS ARE A SUCCESS”. The operative word being success. News flash to Happyjack- people have differing opinions on what the definition of success is with respect to government programs for fighting poverty. Believe it or not, some people actually think providing incentives for people to stay in poverty, and government programs making generational poverty more likely, is not a good thing. Just because two lefties, or even a million lefties say it is so, doesn’t make it so.
Vincent- I put out the argument about a column by the NRA to show the absurdity of allowing biased and partisan parties to publish opinion pieces as news articles without any indications they are op-eds. A reputable new source, which I have ever decreasing reasons to believe Urban Milwaukee to be, would not allow opionion pieces by biased and partisan groups such as Wisconsin Budget Project to be published on their media without notation of the piece being an op-ed. Do you think Wisconsin Budget Project will report facts that run counter to their weekly arguments about left-leaning policy positions? I would not expect that to happen. Why? Because this is an op-ed!
The other issue is the built-in editorial bias to allow Wisconsin Budget Project to publish an on-going series of opinion pieces not marked as such. Do you think the NRA would be allowed to publish its biased opinions using its selected facts about guns in society on Urban Milwaukee on a regular basis? Not a chance. (FYI- I don’t own a gun and I am not advocating for the NRA.)
you were using it as the starting place. you were using how you’d like it after to justify how you measure it before.
before people are using food stamps. you cant just say we’d like them to not have to use food stamps so lets not count food stamps as part of their capital.
man made global warming is a scientific fact, bill. your refusal to acknowledge it does not make it go away.
The exact opposite of what you say is true: conservatives habitually label any facts that don’t support their delusions as “opinions” so that they can mantain their delusions. it keeps them ignorant and proud. dunning-krueger effect.
Bill I think a lot of people live in a media and political echo chamber. What’s an example of a nonpartisan source when it comes to economic issues? Couldn’t it be that one’s opinion on the fairness and accuracy of the Wisconsin Budget Project depends entirely on their political ideology? It makes discussing issues like this difficult when all everyone sees is biased sources with an agenda to push.
Not to mention it’s a blatant fallacy that conservatives use ALL THE TIME because they can’t win an argument.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy
Name calling- thanks for ringing the bell Happyjack (see Pavlov and Trump). Last I checked, man-made global warming is a theory with respect to its effect on our planet. I believe man has very little affect with respect to global warming. I believe there may be more of a driving force due to natural global warming (Wisconsin was under a glacier only 15,000 years ago). These are opinions on theories that you cannot prove as being false unless you go back to your leftist approach of making up “facts”.
Oh, you mean “science”?
I know how juvenille and idiotic of me to rely on evidence and experiment and all that. I should just trust my intution despite the overwhelming evidence.
“That’s where the truth lies, right down here in the gut. Do you know you have more nerve endings in your gut than you have in your head? You can look it up. I know some of you are going to say “I did look it up, and that’s not true.” That’s ’cause you looked it up in a book.”
Jack, you were always sort of a B, maybe B+ student, weren’t you? You like learning and memorizing… but maybe the reading comprehension and application part was a bit tricky, wasn’t it? Or are you currently a student who’s hubris causes you to jump the gun in these discussions?
[Sigh] Ad Hominem. Sorry… Disregard previous sentence.
I’ll explain it again… as I usually have to… If the ideal society is one where no one needs government assistance and that is our goal, what metric would you use to see how successful we are in getting toward that point? Not SPM, you would use OPM.
Obviously the above question is moot if you believe government should only provide a safety net and it’s not the place of government to help and encourage people to move up to the middle class. Although no one here has stated that as a belief… that I know of.
That was an overly snarky response on my part… I apologize…
Actually I took all the advanced courses. I was in the Gifted and Talented program.
My general IQ of 132 is enough to place me in Mensa.
My mathematical / spatial IQ is 150. That’s more than 3 standard deviations above the mean.
In middle school they had to bus me to high school for math class because they ran out of courses.
But enough about me.
I’ll explain it again… as I usually have to… If the ideal society is one where no one needs government assistance and that is our goal, what metric would you use to see how successful we are in getting toward that point?
You would use OPM because that includes all capital, not just cash. Capital can come in many forms and if you don’t include all forms you could see an increase or decrease when the total capital isn’t really increasing or decresasing, its just changing form. Or conversely — as in this case — it could appear to stay constant when actually going down because now its a form of capital that you’re not counting, or appear to be going up because suddenly its a form of capital that you are counting.
It’s a pretty simple concept. Not sure why you’re not grasping it.
hah, all that and i said OPM where I meant SPM.
Vincent- I think it is very difficult in this day and age to find unbiased news sources on topics that are devisive and/or political. I believe the best way to form opinions on issues is to look at both sides- there are plenty of sources for each side on the net. What alarms me are the fervent absolutists on both sides.
Finally, I respect Wisconsin Budget Project for having their opinion on the topic of poverty. They are a left-wing group and that is what they perceive as success in fight on poverty. Like most on the right, I disagree with their definition of sucess. And I don’t like that it is an op-ed without indication as being such.
Oh math is your strong suit, ok I can use that…. let’s do some algebra. Read this, then really think about your position for using SPM as the metric.
If our goal is to have a society where everyone’s income (I) is greater than poverty level (P) without government assistance (A) then we want: I > P s.t. A = 0
SPM = I + A
OPM = I (Society security, disability and the like are counted as regular income)
Why would we want SPM > P when that equals I + A > P ? That doesn’t match our original equation. We want I > P Thus, we must use OPM
My response to this article is two part.
First, America could solve even eliminate poverty if it had the human will to do so but that of course would be too human of us Americans.
Secondly, America claims it is a God fearing country yet the God America serves teaches – “It is better to teach a man to fish then the man will be able to feed himself.”
America declared 100 year old war against poverty is one sided whereas our Governments do what it can do to manage poverty levels but our workforce employers – companies and corporations – are not concern about poor people quailty of living they are concerned more about profits and more profits at the expense of the working poor.
When America gets serious about eliminating poverty it will demand American corporations and companies get serious about paying living wages that rise with the cost of living in America.
Bill Marsh, there is no such thing as an “unbiased source” & that’s been true since before the dinosaurs. You’ll only get a person calling something an “unbiased source” when they agree with it.
The best we can get is facts & getting them from people who admit their actual biases. Reading or listening to the rantings of someone that hasn’t taken a moment to reflect on their own biases is an exercise in pointlessness.
Really though, how is a neutral person (stay with me here) supposed to read your accusations? Basically, you’re some right-winger that looks left & calls everyone “left-wing”… you’re like a Mormon walking into a bar & calling everyone drunks.
If our goal is to get peopel out of poverty, we need to accurately track what programs are effective.
In order to accurately track, you need to track the same thing over time.
Where I = normal income and A = assistance, the left half of the OPM graph is:
I+A
but since the Assistance latter turned from cahs into other non-cash capital, the A is no longer included in the right side:
I
So the left side and the right side of OPM is looking at two different things.
You want them to look at the same thing. So either you have to remove A from the left side, or add A(which is now non-cash) to the right side. The latter is SPM.
capeesh?
it’s more like a kid calling a teacher stupid and biased because the teacher the kid wrote down 2+2=3, and the teacher said it was 4. It’s totally emotive and juvenille. The kid needs to stop blaiming his failure to do the math right on everyone else and start doing his frickin’ home work.
Great, if you can find a way to parse A from the left portion of OPM, be my guest. We can still use the “right half” as the metric to follow to reach the goal. I still can’t even find what those cash benefits included other than social security and disability benefits.
You’ve done a good job of getting us off track… but to bring things back, once again, it all depends on what role you see the government playing. Is it only a safety net? Or should government also work to help and encourage people to move up to middle class through their own income?
perhaps i sholdn’t talk — i’d dismiss out of hand anything that comes from fox news. but in my defense, most of what comes out of faux is B.S. http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/tv/fox/
and the people who get their news from it are less informed than people who don’t get any news at all http://www.businessinsider.com/study-watching-fox-news-makes-you-less-informed-than-watching-no-news-at-all-2012-5
so…if one wants to be informed, it’s the rational thing to do.
You can’t use OPM as a metric to gauge the effectiveness of the programs paul ryan is referring to, because to do that you need to compare the left side to the right side, and you can’t because its missing a lot of data.
You need to add in the data. That gives you SLP.
If you then want to then subtract out total cash AND non-cash assistance, that would be interesting.
But you can’t use a graph that only includes cash assistance because then one side of your graph is measuring oen thing and the other is measuring something else, so you can’t use that to guage the effectiveness of programs during that time period.
Yeah Tim, I am a right-winger. And yes Tim, I have biases. And yes, I did call lefties lefties. If I called someone a lefty that is not one, I apologize (is that now a pejorative?). Now that I have admitted my sins, when are you going to admit on this board your biases? Good grief. I’m kidding, please don’t. But Tim, please work your analogies a little more…
Also Tim, thanks for agreeing with me. Your comment makes my point regarding Urban Milwaukee and Wisconsin Budget Project- “The best we can get is facts & getting them from people who admit their actual biases.” I am glad you agree that an editorial should be labeled as an editorial, thus disclosing to the reader that is a biased opinion piece, and not try to pass it as a news article.
Bill, what part of the story do you dispute the factual accuracy of?
It does read an editorial or press release style. Press release might have been a more appropriate category.
I can find a few things near the end that are emotive, though arguably still factual.
e.g. “it’s definitely worth looking at ways that they can be improved” is sort of an opinion, but i don’t think its really controversial.
“A sensible improvement…” The use of the word “sensible”, this is somewhat subjective.
“he sets back the public discourse” it certainly doesn’t help the public discourse, but setting it back is premised on people paying it any creed. This is a pretty safe assumption, though.
Bill, if you want to learn about the components that contribute to global warming and their realative proportions, this is a really nice and simple resource:
http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-world/
the truth is WAYdifferent than what you heard from your source (Fox news?)
also you can just google a bit to come up with good resources.
Bill, you have it backwards, as usual. Labeling something as “Editorial” makes about as much sense as saying “I think” every time you open your mouth. It’s a given. Everything ever said is an editorial & if you haven’t figured out that the world has been & will forever more be different shades of gray, then you’re without hope.
I’ve got to call gray fallacy on that one: https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/59/Argument-to-Moderation
That, and Sweeping generalization fallacy.
There are facts. There does exist factual accounts of things.
Not everything is an editorial.