Are You Less Poor If You Are More Dependent?
In response to my article Poverty Is Worse Today than in 1965, a reader calling himself Cheese left this comment:
It's been a while since we had our back and forth... I am disappointed that you (to my knowledge) never addressed the issue that I raised, that the actual poverty rate has declined enormously since the war on poverty began, as shown by the Brookings Institute study above.
The Brookings Institute study actually does show that the poor are better off today than in 1965. However, what I wrote was that "After spending more than 15 trillion dollars on the poor in America, we do not have less people in poverty, as a percentage, than before the War on Poverty started." I did not write that the poor were worse off today than in 1965.
Take the case of Lester M. who made minimum wage back in 1965 and could barely pay his rent, could not afford a phone, had to wear extra heavy clothing in his home in the winter time because he didn't have enough money for heat, and some days even went to bed hungry.
Now in 2015, Lester doesn't have a job at all and wouldn't want one if it was offered. But Lester is now living large without spilling a drop of sweat: the Feds pay his rent, he can call his friends with his Obamaphone, he can sleep naked in the winter with the help of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) fills his refrigerator.
Any study of poverty comparing 1965 to 2015 will easily conclude that Lester is much better off today than 50 years ago. However, Lester is not better off because there is less poverty today, indeed Lester is even more poor and dependent today than when he was younger.
Lester is seemingly better off now economically, but that depends on how long he can keep sponging off the work of others. As Margaret Thatcher once said: "The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."
One day the party will be over and the moochers will not have anyone left to mooch from. Then Cheese will be scratching his head wondering why so many people are cold, hungry, homeless, and jobless when all the studies show that there is hardly any poverty left at all.
Here's the caption for the photo above: "According to a Brookings Institute study this person isn't really living in poverty."
Just so you know, my dear Cheese, if you need handouts to live and eat, then you are poor. The Brookings Institute study only proves that more people need handouts to live and eat than in 1965. That they get more handouts today than in 1965 supports my view, not yours.
