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I can't say if it's in the paywalled study or just the article, but multiple stats and links used point back to government poverty data which would be using a d
by flagrant_taco 3y ago
I can't say if it's in the paywalled study or just the article, but multiple stats and links used point back to government poverty data which would be using a different definition than the study.
At a minimum that would be sloppy journalism, but in my opinion any researcher should see that coming and use the standard definition that the study is clearly attempting to compare against. It really doesn't seem to make sense to redefine such a loaded term even if the federal definition is tedious to work with.
- bombcar 3y agoAgreed, the "poverty line" is such a well-defined term of art that you shouldn't even consider using the word unless you're referencing it (which can be fine to do the "200% of" math because that's often still quite low). In this case it sounds like they'd be better off defining something else because "the half of the people below the median" has some obviously glaring issues right off the bat.
- tsimionescu 3y agoWhile I mostly agree, note that the definition in the study is not "the half of people below the median", it's "all the people earning less than half of the median income".
- flagrant_taco 3y agoIt is the national median though, which completely loses the fine-grained detail built into the national poverty statistics that adjust for cost of living at the state level. I don't think I would actually say the federal metric itself is particularly useful, but so much existing data depends on it that it seems crazy to reinvent the meaning of what the poverty line is for one specific study.