Sunday, September 14, 2008
Editorial: Determine which Americans are poor
The federal government uses the cost of an outdated basket of food to gauge poverty levels. A new method is needed.
From the RoundTable blog
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When President Johnson declared war on poverty, he needed a way to determine which Americans were poor. An idea that had merit in the 1960s was to look at the cost of a basket of groceries and determine how much income a family would need so as not to spend more than a third of it on food.
From there, income tables were born that determine each year how much families of certain sizes must earn to rise above poverty.
The federal government has been measuring poverty the same way ever since. It's an outdated, flawed method. Republicans and Democrats agree it needs changing; they differ, though, on how.
Rep. Jim McDermott, a Washington Democrat who chairs the House subcommittee on income insecurity, plans soon to introduce a bill similar to one offered last year by Illinois Republican Rep. Jerry Weller.
For McDermott's bill to succeed, both parties must move beyond ideological suspicions: Democrats claim Republicans want fewer people to be classified as poor so that they can eviscerate aid to the needy. Republicans claim Democrats want an even broader definition so that more money will be doled out in entitlement programs.
Surely, there is common ground. Americans need a better idea of how many fellow citizens truly struggle, and why, so that programs can be better tailored to meet actual needs.
Any guideline revisions should start with tossing out that 1960s basket of food. Americans now spend a far larger percentage of their income for housing, child care and health, and less on food, than 40 years ago.
Not only does it make little sense to tie poverty to groceries, the current method also fails to consider the worth of food stamps, housing vouchers and other assistance that helps to raise people over the poverty line.
If the goal is to determine, as Johnson sought, whether the government is making advancements in alleviating the pain of poverty, then it needs to measure how effective those programs are. So long as -- and this is crucial -- there isn't a scheme to then strip those programs because there are fewer "poor" people.
While assistance should be counted as income, expenses such as taxes, child care and medical costs must factor into the poverty equation.
With both these measures, Americans might gain a better picture of both how many citizens are helped and how many more remain needy.
