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America is substantially reducing poverty among children

economist.com

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Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#71

Post by jollybean »

The data from the graph in the article shows a very obvious downward trend of child poverty from the end of 2020 until now. The line that demarcates the 'monthly cheques' I don't think is remotely remarkable.

That's not to say anything for or against the program, but I think that they are overstating things.

If you want a chart that shows a 'possible driver' of lowered poverty that lines up a little bit more nicely with that graph, try this [1] which is just US BLS unemployment. As millions of people become unemployed ... child poverty rates spike, as they become employed, they go down.

[1] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#72

Post by BobbyJo »

oconnor663 wrote: post #48
markus_zhang wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If cost is not controlled I'd expect expenses of food, clothed and renting to rise after UBI being implemented.

I can see the argument for the price of rent rising, but why would the prices of food and clothing rise? My understanding is that those are highly competitive markets, with low margins on top of the cost of production, at least in their non-luxury segments. Is that wrong?

Food and clothing depend on other things (cost of employees, equipment, materials, etc.) When the costs of those things rise, the cost of food and clothing will have to rise.

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#73

Post by wolverine876 »

flimflamm wrote: post #5

How can children be poor? Aren't their parents poor? Or are children supposed to provide for them selves in US?

I would look past the literal question in the parent, and think about the implications: Who provides for children? Why should they suffer poverty, having no power or responsibility for their own condition?

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#74

Post by joshenberg »

BobbyJo wrote: post #72
oconnor663 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see the argument for the price of rent rising, but why would the prices of food and clothing rise? My understanding is that those are highly competitive markets, with low margins on top of the cost of production, at least in their non-luxury segments. Is that wrong?

Food and clothing depend on other things (cost of employees, equipment, materials, etc.) When the costs of those things rise, the cost of food and clothing will have to rise.

Depends where we source them, for example American-made clothing is already prohibitively expensive to the economic demographic segments that are targeted by UBI experiments.

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#75

Post by clavalle »

45yu56bwedfg wrote: post #36
chiefalchemist wrote: post #27

Poverty is more than an financial state. Giving away money to move someone from just below the poverty line - which is artificially low - to just above that line is honorable, but "curing" poverty is not that simple. Unfortunately, articles like this help the myth persist. More political magician-y mumbo jumbo. It's also important to ask: at what cost? If these monies were financed by printing more money, then that's…

Money is always printed. The only difference is how fast we inflate the current supply, not that we inflate it. Inflation is a function of the system itself. Its fundamental. Poverty is a desired outcome of this system.

Keeping money moving is the desired outcome of inflation.

Spending money isn't what keeps people in poverty.

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#76

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #63
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'm certain that there are people who spend an irresponsible amount on lottery tickets, I don't know if those are also the lottery winners. I'd be very interested in any statistics for that. Where I am lottery tickets cost about the same as a Starbucks coffee, and I'd bet the average lottery player buys tickets less than the average Starbucks drinker buys coffee, making me wonder about the label of "less fiscal…

The lottery ticket purchase is a gamble: spend money, almost certainly get nothing, tiny chance of winning big. The coffee purchase is just that, a purchase: spend money, get coffee. The amounts might be similar but the transaction class is totally different.

I don't know, it's really a form of entertainment. The odd chances I do buy a ticket it's to think about what I would do if I won. I'm not expecting to win, I just like the idea.

And both are transient and rather empty - neither provide any real value outside of a brief joy.

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#77

Post by jimbob45 »

m_ke wrote: post #30
munk-a wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the wording in your original post was particularly poor though - instead of focusing in on those two as individuals you attributed the issue to democrats as a whole - and also omitted that the bill would also pass quite easily if, say, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz decided to vote for it. You mentioned that it passed due to the previous administration (a republican administration) and was now in danger (under a…

Here's my wording for anyone who can't see it due to it being flagged: """ *Temporarily, and partially thanks to the previous administration The infrastructure bill is about to fail due to a few corrupt corporate Democrats. """ It's more than just Sinema and Manchin, that's why I said a few corporate democrats: https://www.businessinsider.com/house-democrats-threaten-hol... I'm pretty left leaning by American standar…

A lot of people fresh to the political process may not realize that this is a routine thing that happens on both sides of the aisle. For example, Lieberman in 2009 killed the public option[0] for his own party on Obamacare which would have gone a long ways toward forwarding the left's healthcare vision. Later on in 2017, Susan Collins, a Republican, voted to save Obamacare which very likely could have succeeded had she voted with her party[1]

[0]https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/newsletter-art...

[1]https://www.healthreformvotes.org/congress/300025

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#78

Post by vpribish »

inglor_cz wrote: post #50
encoderer wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Costs cannot be controlled. That’s not how it works. That’s how you get empty shelves. I think some inflation will happen but not dramatically in food and clothing. We do not have many naked and starving people in America. It’s the premium consumer goods that will see higher demand - think dishwashers not Chanel.

I guess rent will be the one to go up in case of UBI. UBI fundamentally does not solve the problems that: a) some people do not want to live next to some other people, and are willing to pay extra for that privilege - now they have even more money to use for that purpose, b) in the most expensive regions, demand exceeds supply a lot. I even think that a vast majority of UBI would, at the end, accrue to landlords.

in the current context of this experiment rent dropped by 30% in SF while this was going on. Sure some of that was people fleeing dense urban areas to escape lockdowns, but also some was people decamping because the economic pressure to work in a city was lifted. UBI might be a terrible threat to landlords' incomes as people redistribute.

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#79

Post by riboflavin123 »

wolverine876 wrote: post #70
riboflavin123 wrote: post #59

> depending on how it is measured, somewhere between one in six or one in five children counted as poor This is an alarmingly high number. I've been primed by media to blame this on an inverse relationship between income and number-of-children (i.e. poor people have many babies, rich people have few babies). Does anyone have an alternative explanation for the surprisingly high child poverty rate?

Could you provide a basis for this theory? I think the burden is on you to establish your claim, not on others to disprove it. So far, it's baseless, supported only by: > I've been primed by media ... The media isn't responsible for what I believe; I am. If I know I'm being "primed", then I don't believe it. Also, I'm not sure what media the parent refers to, but it's much different from what I read.

I am aware that most of my knowledge about income distribution comes via news articles/videos. In the instances where they DO cite sources (which is rare), I have never personally investigated the data behind claims.

That is why I prefaced my comment about being "primed" by media.

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#80

Post by maxerickson »

SomaticPirate wrote: post #58

I’m a bit surprised by these comments. This seems like data driven evidence of a government policy working quite well. Yet there are people complaining about this causes inflation and is “printing money”. The article clearly points out that most of the spending is on essentials and directly contributing to the children’s quality of life. Not the article I would expect to see fiscal hawks on.

"fiscal hawks" probably isn't correct.
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