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That report starts out with the ridiculous statement that "40 million people continue to live in poverty" in the US. If you spend just five or ten minutes tryi

That report starts out with the ridiculous statement that "40 million people continue to live in poverty" in the US. If you spend just five or ten minutes trying to understand where that number comes from you can only include that Mr. Alston is either unimaginably incompetent in understanding poverty statistics or he is being massively disingenuous in his reporting. A little googling will show that the 40 million number is based on cash income that doesn't excludes massive amounts of government assistance (housing assistance, food stamps, and so on). It is an absolute useless statistic to use as a primary statement about "poverty" in the US. Here is a good take down of this misleading report: http://manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2018/1/30/completely-taken-in-by-the-poverty-fraud http://manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2018/1/30/completely-tak...

shkkmo 9y ago
A little googling will show that "there is no international consensus on guidelines for measuring poverty". I agree that "40 million people continue to live in poverty" is a claim that needs an accompanying definition of poverty and and description of the measurement methodology to really convey information. However that number is the Official US estimate of its own poverty rate. I agree that our methodology of measure poverty in the US is laughable and needs improvement, but you can't blame Mr. Alston for that. Your assertion that this claim is "ridiculous" and that Mr. Alston is "unimaginably incompetent" or "massively disingenuous" for using the US's own measurement of poverty is thus clearly beyond hyperbole and more than a little ridiculous and quite disingenuous itself.
- gwright 9y ago
  So you agree that the statistic is meaningless without context and yet you are OK with that being the lead in the report?
  - shkkmo 9y ago
    I would have preferred to see context provided with the statistic (as it should be with every statistic). I don't think that usage of that statistic without context is meaningless given that it is the official US estimate of poverty. I certainly don't think the usage of that statistic without context warrants anything close to the vitriolic language that you used.
    - gwright 9y ago
      I did use strong language. The statistic as used is extremely misleading. So far I haven't seen anyone discredit that conclusion. Pointing out that it is an official statistics isn't a rationale in favor of its use in this way. It happens to be just one of the measures of poverty published by the US government. There are lots of other poverty statistics that could have been used and so I can only assume the use was intentionally misleading.
      - shkkmo 9y ago
        You could have come in here and made a constructive comment about the number and the associate methodology of measuring poverty. Instead you made unfounded and unwarranted attacks on the author and made zero constructive contributions to the conversation. If you want to make people more aware of better measures of poverty, you should have come in here with a critique of the measurement without the vitriol and ideally with examples of better measures that can be used.
        gwright 9y ago
        You are right, I could have done that and probably should have done that. I have a certain amount of frustration that resulted in me venting rather than contributing. The misuse of the official US poverty stat is not something new. It has been floating around for a while and has been criticized quite a bit -- yet it is still used to put forth misleading arguments out of ignorance most often but not always. Here is a link on this very issue from 2011: https://www.heritage.org/poverty-and-inequality/report/understanding-poverty-the-united-states-surprising-facts-about?_ga=2.139130678.443965254.1519341692-1519354153.1479182938 https://www.heritage.org/poverty-and-inequality/report/under... It is one thing for a misleading statistic to be repeated in tweets, online discussions, comment streams and so on. It is a completely different thing for the misleading stat to be coming from an "authority". They should know better.
  - shkkmo 9y ago
    Since this is a report about dealing with poverty, I would have like to see the author make the point that: improving our measurement of poverty is an important part of being able to fight poverty.

shkkmo 9y ago

A little googling will show that "there is no international consensus on guidelines for measuring poverty". I agree that "40 million people continue to live in poverty" is a claim that needs an accompanying definition of poverty and and description of the measurement methodology to really convey information. However that number is the Official US estimate of its own poverty rate. I agree that our methodology of measure poverty in the US is laughable and needs improvement, but you can't blame Mr. Alston for that. Your assertion that this claim is "ridiculous" and that Mr. Alston is "unimaginably incompetent" or "massively disingenuous" for using the US's own measurement of poverty is thus clearly beyond hyperbole and more than a little ridiculous and quite disingenuous itself.

gwright 9y ago
So you agree that the statistic is meaningless without context and yet you are OK with that being the lead in the report?
- shkkmo 9y ago
  I would have preferred to see context provided with the statistic (as it should be with every statistic). I don't think that usage of that statistic without context is meaningless given that it is the official US estimate of poverty. I certainly don't think the usage of that statistic without context warrants anything close to the vitriolic language that you used.
  - gwright 9y ago
    I did use strong language. The statistic as used is extremely misleading. So far I haven't seen anyone discredit that conclusion. Pointing out that it is an official statistics isn't a rationale in favor of its use in this way. It happens to be just one of the measures of poverty published by the US government. There are lots of other poverty statistics that could have been used and so I can only assume the use was intentionally misleading.
    - shkkmo 9y ago
      You could have come in here and made a constructive comment about the number and the associate methodology of measuring poverty. Instead you made unfounded and unwarranted attacks on the author and made zero constructive contributions to the conversation. If you want to make people more aware of better measures of poverty, you should have come in here with a critique of the measurement without the vitriol and ideally with examples of better measures that can be used.
      - gwright 9y ago
        You are right, I could have done that and probably should have done that. I have a certain amount of frustration that resulted in me venting rather than contributing. The misuse of the official US poverty stat is not something new. It has been floating around for a while and has been criticized quite a bit -- yet it is still used to put forth misleading arguments out of ignorance most often but not always. Here is a link on this very issue from 2011: https://www.heritage.org/poverty-and-inequality/report/understanding-poverty-the-united-states-surprising-facts-about?_ga=2.139130678.443965254.1519341692-1519354153.1479182938 https://www.heritage.org/poverty-and-inequality/report/under... It is one thing for a misleading statistic to be repeated in tweets, online discussions, comment streams and so on. It is a completely different thing for the misleading stat to be coming from an "authority". They should know better.
- shkkmo 9y ago
  Since this is a report about dealing with poverty, I would have like to see the author make the point that: improving our measurement of poverty is an important part of being able to fight poverty.