orb@whuts.UUCP (SEVENER) (03/25/86)
> > What do you mean by "view our poor?" Are you saying that the more > wealth one has, the more one should give to the poor? If so, why? > > Mike Sykora It seems that many people on the net have some difficulty in understanding how poverty is measured. This is in part because they cannot believe that people could really be "poor" in what used to be the richest nation on Earth. Let us get some things straight. The government determines the poverty level in a way similar to the way it measures consumer inflation. How does the government determine consumer inflation? The way it measures consumer inflation is to pick a representative bundle of consumer goods, such as so much meat, so many vegetables, automobiles, appliances and so forth and then creates an index based upon changes in prices of items from this representative bundle over time. This bundle of goods is not a "relative" thing except insofar as it was initially chosen to be roughly representative of what the typical American household would buy. Instead it is a concrete bundle of goods which stays constant while prices change. In similar fashion the poverty level is picked by choosing those items which are considered necessities of life - for example, housing is considered essential, as are a quantity of food sufficient to thrive, a minimum amount of clothing and so forth. The poverty level as determined by the government is *not* based on whether one has a VCR or not, a Rolls Royce, a cuisinart or whatever consumer fads may be sweeping the nation. Therefore the poverty level is an absolute standard which is periodically adjusted in the same way the consumer price index is periodically adjusted. It is precisely for this reason that one can speak about an increase or decrease in poverty. If poverty were *simply* based on relative income then any changes in poverty would simply mirror changes in the distribution of income. Until recently for decades there had been little change in the distribution of income. On this basis then there should have been no change in the number of people in poverty. But in fact there was a substantial decline in the number of people in poverty since the late 60's until recently as measured by the government's minimum standards of goods. Since Reagan came into office the number of people in poverty has drastically increased. Moreover once again last year the median family income declined for the sixth year in a row. It is a mistake therefore to argue that the recent increases in poverty are simply a product of an overall raise in the standard of living. For one thing, the overall standard of living for the typical American family is declining. For another thing the poverty level measured by the government is not simply "relative" to the overall standard of living for Americans but on what is considered necessary goods. At the same time, it is quite true that what the US government considers "necessary goods" in determining American poverty is higher than what would be considered the minimum in most other countries. But I do not believe that American poverty should be measured by standards which do not include indoor plumbing, or in which cow dung is used as a source of nutrients, or which counts "adequate shelter" as huts patched together from a bunch of tin cans placed over sticks and cardboard. If conservatives feel the government's definition of poverty should be changed to these standards I think they will be considered, quite properly, very mean-spirited. As a civilized nation our citizens deserve better than that. tim sevener whuxn!orb