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America is substantially reducing poverty among children

economist.com

81–90 of 161 posts

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#81
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

Another thing that some people don't realize is that this reconciliation bill could be the last attempt at Biden passing any meaningful legislation. If it fails dems are guaranteed to lose seats in the midterms, giving up their slim majority and effectively turning Biden into a lame duck president.

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#83
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why you need to fight asset inflation, reduce red tapes and increasing housing opportunities.

Sure, but it behoves advocates to UBI to say: "We have a solution that not only includes handing outs cash to everyone forever, but to fight the associated, unavoidable rent inflation we will introduce sweeping changes to hard-earned building standards, negatively alter the character of many many neighbourhoods, and add a massive beurocracy to introduce and enforce with the power of the state all sorts of price contr…

Bureaucracy is a wellspring of employment.

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#84
post #10
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't take HN threads into partisan flamewar. It's the opposite of what we're trying for on this site. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It's not partisan, the child tax credit that gives parents $300/month/child that was included in the "American Rescue Plan" expires at the end of the year. [1] The new infrastructure bill was supposed to include free childcare and other benefits but it's looking like it will get killed by Manchin and Sinema. [1] "The American Rescue Plan allows families to opt in to receive the monthly payments from July 15 until Dec…

The last sentence of your GP comment was obviously flamebait. That's what we ask people not to post here. Let's not quibble over what counts as "partisan"—all political flamewar is something we're trying to avoid here.

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#85
post #72

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.

> 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.

Not really. You're pointing to production costs, but production costs just define the price's lower bound, not the price itself.

Price depends solely on willingness to pay and pricing strategy, which is higher than the production cost when the product/service is not subsidized or a loss leader.

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#86
post #40

Mostly because the pandemic caused panic stimulus spending, not because of permanent, structural changes to fiscal policy.

Not sure if you're aware but the US recently started sending checks to families every month.

They are merely paying out a tax credit early. Families are not getting more (or at least, not much more) than before due to this.

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#87
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If 20 quit their low wage job and one of them finally has time to study and become a researcher or doctor, I think it's worth it.

What if they become a shitty musician? And curent researchers get paid even less, because their money goes to a kid who'd rather play his ukulele inestead of working?

That's a valid argument only if you believe that a person only lives a life worth living if they have utility to others.

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Then perhaps the question is, 'what causes the high rate of child poverty in the US, can anyone provide some substantive information?'

The claim is baseless and thus not relevant; posting it just spreads a baseless claim, which we have plenty of on the Internet!

> In the instances where they DO cite sources (which is rare)

If it helps, try higher-quality news. The journalism I read always cites sources; it's a rule of serious journalism.

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#89
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

Another thing that some people don't realize is that this reconciliation bill could be the last attempt at Biden passing any meaningful legislation. If it fails dems are guaranteed to lose seats in the midterms, giving up their slim majority and effectively turning Biden into a lame duck president.

I'm happy to disagree with you on that one. Consider the actual Senate elections[0]. There are 20 R seats up vs 14 D seats. The R side is mathematically on the defense. In addition, if you look at the forecasts, most of the seats are foregone conclusions - we're down to ~5 seats that will be actual contests. This isn't to say one side will or will not win but neither side is likely to get the decisive win that each want.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_Senate_elec...

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#90

> 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?

70% of African-American children are born outside wedlock:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/Nonmarit...

Which is driven by a welfare system that punishes married couples with lower payments (witness the huge rise in out-of-wedlock births since the welfare schemes of the 60s/70s).

35% of African-American children live in poverty:

https://www.nccp.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/wpc10-fig3.j...

Creating a subsect of society which is endlessly reliant on transfer payments to avoid poverty is not a good outcome for society. It would be better to encourage family planning and marriage.

http://marripedia.org/effects_of_out-of-wedlock_births_on_so...

"The evidence is clear and disturbing, being born outside of marriage lowers the health of newborns and increases their chances of dying; it delays children’s cognitive (especially their verbal) development; it lowers their educational achievement; it lowers their job attainment; it increases their behavior problems; it lowers their impulse control; it warps their social development; it helps change their community from being a support to being a danger to their development; and it increases the crime rate in their community.

To make the situation worse, the government has instilled powerful incentives in the welfare system which makes illegitimacy a community way of life, particularly in very poor communities. The widespread incidence of illegitimacy in turn passes on all these effects to the next generation in an even more malignant form.

While the government cannot instill virtue, it does not need to subsidize this rejection. Government policies have subsidized illegitimacy, and the evidence of its serious effects are steadily growing. Congress must adopt policies friendly to children. But to do that Congress must first become more friendly to married fathers and mothers."

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