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Thanks for the thoughts. A couple of points. As far as I understand, not most of American children are growing in poverty. There are figures of 20-25% of child

Thanks for the thoughts. A couple of points. As far as I understand, not most of American children are growing in poverty. There are figures of 20-25% of children living in poverty, but even there the numbers are skewed - here poverty is measured before social security transfers that are meant to alleviate poverty. So those numbers are just carefully selected to make the problem look worse. If you look at the post-welfare poverty figures, they are in the few percent range. If the same methods were applied in Europe, we might have a higher child poverty rate because average income is lower and living cost is higher. (Only trust statistics you've forged yourself.) Over here, the marriage status of mothers does not impact their welfare payments - their co-habiting status does. A big difference here (in Nordic countries) is that we have a Big Brother society where people actually report to the authorities where they live and everyone has an official address. You need an official address to get welfare (though you don't need a home). As a result, the new partner marrying (or not) has no impact on welfare payments of families with children; if the couple moves together, they are treated as two parents. Yes, the privacy in U.S. creates some perverse incentives, in this case to not to commit to a marriage. As a result of the Big Brother thing, we don't do door-to-door census here, there's just someone who says things like SELECT COUNT(person_id) FROM persons WHERE permanent_resident=true; and it's actually reliable, except perhaps for some parts of the recent wave of immigration from Middle East which is creating a totally new class of paperless people. Anyway, I agree and appreciate your point. People actually seem to like being and feeling victims, which results in more victims. PS. The engineer in me can't help correcting that it's flak, not flack, because the word comes from German.

Mz 10y ago
http://www.nccp.org/topics/childpoverty.html http://www.nccp.org/topics/childpoverty.html 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.
- ptaipale 10y ago
  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).
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > 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.
    - ptaipale 10y ago
      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.
      - Mz 10y ago
        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. As far as I know, no one in this discussion is doing that. So, I have difficulty understanding why this comment is here. If you are interpreting my remarks that way, you are in error.

Mz 10y ago

http://www.nccp.org/topics/childpoverty.html http://www.nccp.org/topics/childpoverty.html 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.

ptaipale 10y ago
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).
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > 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.
  - ptaipale 10y ago
    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.
    - Mz 10y ago
      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. As far as I know, no one in this discussion is doing that. So, I have difficulty understanding why this comment is here. If you are interpreting my remarks that way, you are in error.