Conflicting measures of poverty

While it's annoying that Democrats try to claim concern for "the poor" while enacting programs that create poverty, it's also annoying when Conservatives nit-pick about who should and should not be classified as poor. Robert Rector at the National Review illustrates this absurdity in his column on poverty...

However, examination of the living standards of the 37 million or so persons, the government defines as “poor,” reveals that America’s poverty “plague” may not be as “terrible” or “incredible” as anti-poverty crusader Edwards contends.

If being “poor” means (as Edwards claims it does) a lack of nutritious food, adequate warm housing, and clothing for a family, then very few of America’s 37 million official “poor” people can be regarded as actually poor. Some material hardship does exist in the United States, but, in reality, it is quite restricted in scope and severity.

Admittedly we Americans define "needs" much higher than the rest of the world, but the reality is that our tax system is such that without a recognition of "poverty" it becomes extremely hard to escape it, let alone exist in it. Many Tax programs such as the Earned Income Credit and the Family Credit allow poor families relief from taxes that really shouldn't be there even for the rest of the population. But look at the stats Rector complains shows poverty as luxury...

46 percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.

My wife has twice now spent a week helping to build homes with Habitat for Humanity. Both cases the homes she was helping to build were larger than ours for families smaller than ours. Yet as small as our home is, it does have three bedroom and two full bathrooms. There a porch, sort of. Not big enough to do anything on other than stand on to open the door.

I've seen houses in the Projects in Dallas. What I found interesting is that most were dumpy and unkempt, but a few were tidy, well kept-up and even had flower beds. It occurred to me then that those would be the very houses that people would most likely ask, "Why are they here?" But those are people showing the exact kind of attitude that should be encouraged, not punished.

You can "own" your home while having little if any capital in it. We actually owe more than our home is worth, but we would be classified as "owning" it. Such distinctions should be noted when people whine that someone shouldn't be considered poor because their name is on a deed to a house.

80 percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, in 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

Our air-conditioner went out a few years back. It normally gets well over 100 in Oklahoma during the summer. The summer before we replaced our air-conditioner, even with it working full bast it would rise to over 90 inside. We made two investments; a new air-conditioner and a strong window fan. We usually used our tax return to pay for my wife to go to Nicaragua on a church-led, humanitarian mission, but that year we bought an air-conditioner instead. We use the window fan (which has a tremendous pull) to pull outside air in when the temperature outside is below 80, then switch to the air-conditioner when it gets above than.

With no air-conditioner at all our house gets from 10 to 20 degrees above the outside temperature during a hot day, so an outside temperature of 100 degrees would mean an inside temperature of 110 to 120. Exactly how much suffering would satisfy Mr. Rector's sense of "rightful poverty"?

 Only six percent of poor households are overcrowded; two thirds have more than two rooms per person.

He's referring to rooms, not just bedrooms. There's no mention whether bathrooms count. One would assume they wouldn't count closets. I grew up with the kitchen being the room for cooking and eating, so their room count may add on "dining room" as an additional room if the area is separated in any way. So a three bedroom house with a mother, father and one child means two rooms per person as the living room, kitchen and dining room double the room count. So what does he consider overcrowded? We have six in our family and our kitchen is our dining room, so that's 6 people, 5 rooms. Are we suffering enough?

 The typical poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)

This is an examples of fudged stats. Note he uses largely populated urban areas for Europe. Much of America's poor are in rural areas. Living space in urban areas is always at a premium, while living space in rural areas isn't. Compare the price of a 1,000 sq foot apartment in New York City as opposed to rural Oklahoma. The New York apartment would cost you ten times as much, therefore people will settle for a smaller living area. Paris, London, Athens, etc. would be the same way. Rector is being very disingenuous trying to compare urban living space with overall living space for people in the lower income brackets in the US.

 Nearly three quarters of poor households own a car; 31 percent own two or more cars.

We own a car. It's a 13-year-old smallish car that our family barely fits in. Perhaps we should trade it in and walk everywhere to sooth Mr. Rector's sensibilities regarding who should and shouldn't be considered poor.

 97 percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.

We have 3 color TVs. Two we got for free from relatives who bought new ones, and didn't need the old ones any more. The other is actually an old Commodore monitor I got for $5, hooked up to a messed up VCR I got for $3 at a garage sale. The VCR won't play tapes, but the tuner works, so we can watch TV by hooking the Commodore monitor up to it.

 78 percent have a VCR or DVD player.

Yes we have an actual working VCR we got at a another garage sale for $2 (they didn't know if it worked, so it was priced low). We finally got a DVD when they went on sale at Wal-Mart and we'd just gotten a bit of extra money. Since our income comes mostly from online freelance work, our computers are part of our business and two of them have DVD players that came standard with the computer.

 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception. 

We got cable when cable broadband came to our area, because it allowed us to actually save money by dropping our landline phone altogether. Having broadband when you work online is as important as having a car when you work across town. Having access to educational channels only available on cable is a plus when you homeschool. By the way, we still pay local taxes that support government schools, while paying for our kids' education ourselves.

 89 percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a more than a third have an automatic dishwasher.

Yes, microwave, an old one a relative was about to throw out. A "stereo" if you want to call it that. It's really some speakers we got at a garage sale hooked up to an amplifier which we run the output from the VCR and computers through. Probably a $15 investment we made over ten years ago. We had a dishwasher that was already in the house. It's since died, giving us the comfort that at least in that area we are suffering enough to please Mr. Rector's sense of economic proportions.

Posted by Danny Carlton at August 28, 2007 9:14 AM