Study: The War on Poverty Works

[TalkingDog]

http://gawker.com/study-the-war-on-poverty-works-1480364346

The study, by researchers at Columbia University, uses a measure of poverty that is more accurate than the government's standard official poverty rate measure (details here), and takes into account how poverty is affected by government transfer programs including food stamps, welfare, tax credits, social security, and unemployment payments. The conclusion: the "War on Poverty" launched by Lyndon Johnson in 1964 has had success. And welfare, at least to some extent, works.

Specifically: "without taxes and other government programs, poverty would have been roughly flat at 27 - 29% , while with government benefits poverty has fallen from 26% to 16% — a 40% reduction. Government programs today are cutting poverty nearly in half (from 29% to 16%) while in 1967 they only cut poverty by about a one percentage point."

[TalkingDog]

1. Bump for the Liberal Agenda.

Can't believe this example of how government programs actually work is getting passed over.

[mathematic]

2. This is great

I've been critical of poverty statistics for a long time precisely because they are unaffected by nearly all our anti-poverty programs. Basically, how can you advocate for food stamps, eitc, etc, programs that really work when the metric you're using is designed to ignore their effects?

I think there's a conflict of interest among some anti-poverty activists. A high and unchanging/increasing poverty level provides support for the argument to have more anti-poverty programs. However, this is shortsighted. The best argument for more anti-poverty programs is that our current anti-poverty programs are highly effective.