About 15 million children in the United States – 21% of all children – live in families with incomes below the federal poverty threshold, a measurement that has been shown to underestimate the needs of families. Research shows that, on average, families need an income of about twice that level to cover basic expenses. Using this standard, 43% of children live in low-income families.
I am old. The last time I looked at the figures, it was above 50%.
Still, I posit that one of the richest nations in the world having 43% of its children growing up in poverty is some incredibly fucked up, inexcusable shit. Even if it were, in fact, "only" 20-25%, we are falling down on the job in a really big way, imo.
Furthermore, studies have shown that every dollar spent on children under age five saves multiple dollars on things like prison costs. The appalling American record in terms of neglecting the nation's children is directly linked to our high incarceration rates.
This does not meet the test of civilized behavior in my book.
I still find it pretty strange that the definition of federal poverty threshold is based on pre-tax income.
What actually matters for poverty (and income equality etc) is income after taxes and transfers.
(I.e. before deciding if someone is in poverty, take into account income taxes, which are progressive, and social security payments which are meant to alleviate poverty).
I was a military wife for a lot of years. The military provides excellent benefits, including free medical care for the family, that most civilian Americans do not have access to. I suspect quality of life for poor European children is generally higher than for poor American children because the government pays for things like basic medical care in many European countries.
I think it is incredibly hard to compare poverty rates in a meaningful way between such extremely different systems. I believe this in part because so many people new to the military look at the nominally low pay and bitch and moan about it and say they could do better outside of the military. Then they leave the military and find that their pay does not go as far as they think it will because they have to pay out of pocket for so many things that were free or had a nominal fee in the military.
For example, when we had on base housing, I had a phone bill but I don't think I had any other utility bills and I could go to a building on base, show my ID and check out a lawnmower for free or get free sod to get my lawn up to standard so it would pass inspection. When my kids were little, I could fill out a form at the military pharmacy once a month and get free OTC drugs, like cold medicine and Tylenol. (They no longer do this. Military benefits have been eroding for years. But cold medicine is not cheap and you need it endlessly when there are children at home.)
I have spent much of my life trying to figure out how to adequately compare the low pay and high benefits of the American military to the often higher pay and lower benefits of civilian jobs. I am good with numbers and it is really hard to do, even though it is the same country. I think the comparison you are trying to make is much, much harder to make than you realize. Different countries with very different systems for everything is very much an apples to oranges type comparison.
Please take my word for it that the quality of life of many American children is appallingly, shamefully bad for such a wealthy country.
> I still find it pretty strange that the definition of federal poverty threshold is based on pre-tax income.
> What actually matters for poverty (and income equality etc) is income after taxes and transfers.
The federal poverty line is used to define eligibility for many benefit programs (both state and federal), so "after taxes and transfers" would be problematic and make individual program beenfit decisions undecidable; post-tax pre-transfer would be sensible except that tax liability is settled far enough after the fact that, again, application of the FPL to things it is primarily used for (benefit eligibility) would be problematic.
For assessing eligibility to benefit programs the definition of poverty threshold is fine.
But using pre-tax pre-transfers figures to describe shocking levels of child poverty is disingenuous, in my opinion. To assess poverty, we should look at the situation after all the actions that are already done to alleviate poverty.
At least you shouldn't argue for more benefits or social programs, if you don't take to account the existing benefits and social programs.
Sorry, this wasn't specifically "you", it was the "you" as a passive voice (I suppose that is not very correct English, what we call the ice-hockey-player-interview-you).
"You shouldn't argue for...", i.e. "one often sees someone arguing for...".
About 15 million children in the United States – 21% of all children – live in families with incomes below the federal poverty threshold, a measurement that has been shown to underestimate the needs of families. Research shows that, on average, families need an income of about twice that level to cover basic expenses. Using this standard, 43% of children live in low-income families.
I am old. The last time I looked at the figures, it was above 50%.
Still, I posit that one of the richest nations in the world having 43% of its children growing up in poverty is some incredibly fucked up, inexcusable shit. Even if it were, in fact, "only" 20-25%, we are falling down on the job in a really big way, imo.
Furthermore, studies have shown that every dollar spent on children under age five saves multiple dollars on things like prison costs. The appalling American record in terms of neglecting the nation's children is directly linked to our high incarceration rates.
This does not meet the test of civilized behavior in my book.
PS: Thanks for the FYI about the word flak.