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I think in that link they're just using US Census data, which uses fixed thresholds. You're right that rural costs of living are lower. Unfortunately I don't s

by md_ 6y ago

I think in that link they're just using US Census data, which uses fixed thresholds. You're right that rural costs of living are lower. Unfortunately I don't see any good data adjusting for this. Nonetheless, the idea that rural America is doing just fine is sort of silly, for a few reasons: - It's a minority of the population. So from a policy perspective, it's unclear to me what the conclusion should be. That more people should move to rural areas? That the Atlantic article is missing the experience of 1/5th of the population? ;) - The same macro trends (rising GINI, declining real household wealth) exist across rural/suburban/urban divisions. (Note too that the Simpsons is probably set in a suburban, not rural, area—and suburban areas have experienced a sharp increase in poverty.) - Qualitatively, rural poverty is associated with prescription drug abuse (extremely prevalent where I grew up), limited education and labor flexibility, limited geographic flexibility, etc. So I never know what to make of these "it's going fine in Rural America" arguments.

Kalium 6y ago
The US Census threshold-based poverty rate does OK at country-level aggregates, but it flatters high-cost/high-income places and exaggerates the problems of low-cost/low-income places. We might be better served by using the Census Bureau's supplemental poverty rates. It has a significant impact on rates: https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-272.html https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-27... California's, for example, goes from 12-ish percent (average) to 18-ish percent (below only DC).
- md_ 6y ago
  Thanks!
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- pmiller2 6y ago
  "exaggerates the problems of low-cost/low income places"? You know, the federal poverty level for a single individual is under $13K per year. In which low income / low cost area do you think that's not a problem?
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    When you're comparing rates it doesn't matter where the bar is set. That just changes the size of your numbers. For the sake of comparison the threshold just needs to be set somewhere that doesn't result in a huge number of states being crammed at one end of the spectrum. The problem is the flattening of urban and rural within state like others have said. A suburb of NYC may as well be a foreign country compared to a suburb of Buffalo. Of course if you're gonna doll out aid based on the absolute number you should set a sane threshold but that doesn't really matter for the purposes of this discussion.
    - pmiller2 6y ago
      I must be dense. I don't understand what you're saying. Why does the distribution matter? If anything, yes, I agree the thresholds should be set much higher than they are now, and should be dependent on local CoL, but $13K/year is going to be a problem no matter where you live.
      - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
        Because if you set the poverty line so that everyone not in the 1% is poor you'd get a rich state with 98.93% poverty and a poor state with 99.52% poverty or some other asinine result that requires more post-processing to actually make sense of. The closer the rate is set to the real definition of poor (however you define that) is the less adjustment you need to do to know how many people are "actually" poor, you just multiply by the population of the area that has that rate. But like I said, the problem is you can't use one federal number and apply it across areas (be those areas states or subsections of states) with very different economic conditions without adjustment. Trying to do so is like trying to compare salaries across countries without taking into account exchange rates. With the single federal rate you can do some rough comparisons. For example we can compare Ohio, a fairly blue collar, not totally rural but also not urban dominated state, with Massachusetts, a state that has all its stats dominated by the Boston area in order to tease out the difference between what it's like living in middle America. But even than it's kind of limiting because the next obvious question is what are the county poverty rates and that gets real messy and inaccurate real fast. Think of the federal poverty rate like U3 unemployment, better than nothing but not good for much if you really want to understand what's going on

by md_ 6y ago

Kalium 6y ago

The US Census threshold-based poverty rate does OK at country-level aggregates, but it flatters high-cost/high-income places and exaggerates the problems of low-cost/low-income places. We might be better served by using the Census Bureau's supplemental poverty rates. It has a significant impact on rates: https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-272.html https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-27... California's, for example, goes from 12-ish percent (average) to 18-ish percent (below only DC).

md_ 6y ago
Thanks!
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
pmiller2 6y ago
"exaggerates the problems of low-cost/low income places"? You know, the federal poverty level for a single individual is under $13K per year. In which low income / low cost area do you think that's not a problem?
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  When you're comparing rates it doesn't matter where the bar is set. That just changes the size of your numbers. For the sake of comparison the threshold just needs to be set somewhere that doesn't result in a huge number of states being crammed at one end of the spectrum. The problem is the flattening of urban and rural within state like others have said. A suburb of NYC may as well be a foreign country compared to a suburb of Buffalo. Of course if you're gonna doll out aid based on the absolute number you should set a sane threshold but that doesn't really matter for the purposes of this discussion.
  - pmiller2 6y ago
    I must be dense. I don't understand what you're saying. Why does the distribution matter? If anything, yes, I agree the thresholds should be set much higher than they are now, and should be dependent on local CoL, but $13K/year is going to be a problem no matter where you live.
    - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      Because if you set the poverty line so that everyone not in the 1% is poor you'd get a rich state with 98.93% poverty and a poor state with 99.52% poverty or some other asinine result that requires more post-processing to actually make sense of. The closer the rate is set to the real definition of poor (however you define that) is the less adjustment you need to do to know how many people are "actually" poor, you just multiply by the population of the area that has that rate. But like I said, the problem is you can't use one federal number and apply it across areas (be those areas states or subsections of states) with very different economic conditions without adjustment. Trying to do so is like trying to compare salaries across countries without taking into account exchange rates. With the single federal rate you can do some rough comparisons. For example we can compare Ohio, a fairly blue collar, not totally rural but also not urban dominated state, with Massachusetts, a state that has all its stats dominated by the Boston area in order to tease out the difference between what it's like living in middle America. But even than it's kind of limiting because the next obvious question is what are the county poverty rates and that gets real messy and inaccurate real fast. Think of the federal poverty rate like U3 unemployment, better than nothing but not good for much if you really want to understand what's going on