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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

#101

Post by munk-a »

jimbob45 wrote: post #89
m_ke wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

As Bernie is getting a bit older he might chose this election to stand down as well - but even if a "republican" won the seat it'd be a VT Republican (maybe even Gov. Scott) so that race might be more interesting than it might appear now - but the conclusion is probably going to be pretty predictably liberal.

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#102

Post by clcaev »

This is not a zero sum game. By providing funds for necessities, there will be increased demand. This demand will spawn new supply, which will bring prices back down. If this child tax credit is left in place, it should cause our economy to restructure some, paying more attention to essentials for children. Those providing for these needs create jobs, further economic activity, and tax revenue.

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#103

Post by lkbm »

iammisc wrote: post #53
srj wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You can't honestly believe that this reduced child poverty. While the Child tax credit has been increased, it's been on a steady increase for a while, and the net amount hasn't changed that much. If the claim is that the timing of payments is reducing poverty.. that's quite the claim. The more obvious answer is that America had quite the recovery from the great recession including a pre-pandemic unemployment rate app…

> While the Child tax credit has been increased, it's been on a steady increase for a while, and the net amount hasn't changed that much.

From what I can tell, it increased by 80%[0], from $2,000 to $3,600. (It varies for different household structures/incomes, but in general the poorest get the most.)

> If the claim is that the timing of payments is reducing poverty.. that's quite the claim.

As someone who's got some close friends who are poor, yes, monthly payments can make a big difference.

But really, the extra $1,200 isn't insignificant. It's 5% of the 25%ile income, and 14% for the 10%ile[1]. $1,200 a year is literally over 50% some of my friends' total food budgets. (I'm sure someone will jump in to explain how they could never eat for that little, but I can assure you that many Americans do.)

[0] https://www.forbes.com/advisor/taxes/will-i-receive-the-chil...

[1] https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#104

Post by Synaesthesia »

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.

What about the trillions airdropped on Wall Street? That was surely also "printing money" ... And it was a lot!

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#105

Post by rubyist5eva »

silver-arrow wrote: post #98
rubyist5eva wrote: post #82

Wait until you start to really feel the effects of inflation. The tone of this article is very pravda-esque.

Agreed. Simply a changing unit of measurement. Wait until this finishes out, you will see decimation of the middle class

For an outlet called "economist" you'd think they would be more cautious at jumping for joy at 1 month of data which is barely even a blip.

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#106

Post by listless »

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.

It’s not that it’s not working. It’s that it’s not a sustainable model. Or if it is, we need to cut a LOT of other stuff.

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#107

Post by nescioquid »

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?

> poor people have many babies, rich people have few babies...Does anyone have an alternative explanation for the surprisingly high child poverty rate?

The question makes me think of Malthus. He argued that population grows geometrically, while agricultural production is linear, but the major restraint on reproduction would chiefly be access to food. You could extend that to say that the poor will be less numerous, but feeding them will cause their population to rise and result in inflation (I think that was apropos the Poor Laws).

That was the 18th century thinking, at any rate. Some explanations I've encountered for why it doesn't work out that way involve examining other checks on reproduction which include things like education level and rights of women, and rate of child mortality. I think you raised a great question that's worth examining -- hopefully someone else can shed light on the subject.

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#108

Post by oconnor663 »

rualca wrote: post #85
BobbyJo wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It seems like there are two effects we're considering at the same time:

1. UBI might increase people's willingness to pay for goods in general, and the prices of goods that are most strongly driven by willingness to pay would rise. (Rent in expensive cities might be an example of this. Milk, soap, and socks probably aren't.)

2. To the extent that UBI is paid for with higher taxes, the prices of everything would go up. This seems obviously true on average and to some extent, but the specific numbers matter a lot. For example if prices go up by 10%, but the people whom UBI is designed to help see their income rise by 20%, then UBI is achieving its stated goal. (Importantly, the hypothetical 10% rise in prices doesn't reflect wealth being burned or spent, but rather resources being moved around in some sense.)

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#109

Post by nullspace »

Factorium wrote: post #90
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?

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... Creati…

> Which is driven by a welfare system that punishes married couples with lower payments

Is this true? If you're not married, then doesn't only one person get to claim the benefits? Not benefits x2?

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#110

Post by AbjectFailure »

wolverine876 wrote: post #88
riboflavin123 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

Just shut the fuck up, you annoying loser. Jesus Christ.
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