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U.S. Suffers Sharpest Rise in Poverty Rate in More Than 50 Years

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Re: U.S. Suffers Sharpest Rise in Poverty Rate in More Than 50 Years

#131

Post by syops »

hintymad wrote: post #123
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #2

Alternative title: "events of 2020 case poverty rate to regress to 2017/2018 levels" Frankly I'm surprised the effect was so small considering that the industries hit hardest by covid employ a heck of a lot of people who are near the poverty line to begin with. I would expect all those people to be pushed to the other side of the line resulting in a much more dramatic increase in the poverty rate.

It's pretty obvious that there has been an enlarging wealth gap and poverty rate has increased. What I don't understand is that the current narrative is to attribute such unfortunate events to systemic racism. Shouldn't we at least look at class difference, shift of industry trend, impact of policies, i.e., take the holistic view?

I contend that the real tragedy of American politics is that what ought to be class/labor issues gets sidetracked into race issues. If poor whites would stop thinking in terms of race and instead think in terms of class and economic justice then real progress could be made. Lyndon Johnson had a famous quote about just this.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-convince-the-lowest-wh...

Re: U.S. Suffers Sharpest Rise in Poverty Rate in More Than 50 Years

#132

Post by d1zzy »

lumost wrote: post #118
wpasc wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you define poverty as income related to costs of living and obtaining necessities for living, it should be entirely decoupled from income inequality. If the poorest 20% of americans had their incomes triple over night without a corresponding increase of the costs of living and Bezos becomes a trillionare, poverty would have decrease with income inequality worsening. If the richest Americans all saw 75% of their we…

I think that definition is susceptible to defining the "necessities for living" in ways that underestimate poverty. How do you define what's the standard of living? As of 2021 I'd imagine that several necessities for interacting with society such as internet access and potentially even mobile access would not be universally viewed as required to be above the poverty line. Similarly while home ownership is probably no…

Wait, is mobile data access a basic right now?

I am living very comfortably but never got a mobile data plan. I find them too expensive for what they are. YMMV.

Re: U.S. Suffers Sharpest Rise in Poverty Rate in More Than 50 Years

#134

Post by willcipriano »

macspoofing wrote: post #75
willcipriano wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you made a minimum wage that was significantly above the prevailing wage I'd expect to see inflation in a economy like the US. My wager would be that dollars that are currently chasing returns in the stock market may shift to wages resulting in those same dollars now trying to buy consumer goods rather than stock. We might not call that inflation in the economy generally as after all stocks would "deflate" during…

>My wager would be that dollars that are currently chasing returns in the stock market may shift to wages resulting in those same dollars now trying to buy consumer goods rather than stock. OK ... but if the money supply stays the same, then all you're doing is just shifting the demand curves from one set of products (stocks) to another (TVs?). Put anther way, some things will go up, and some things will go down beca…

I agree it isn't inflation in the classic sense, I'm not sure of a great term for this effect.

A thought experiment, if I printed up a dollar for each one in circulation then put them in a vault that shouldn't cause inflation even though the money supply has doubled, similarly if in a thousand years someone opens the vault and puts those dollars into circulation inflation happens even though the money supply has unchanged.

My thesis is dollars that go between hedge fund to hedge fund are "in a vault" compared to dollars that are buying food at the local Walmart. If some of those hedge fund dollars ends up in the hands of a individual (say a minimum wage increase causes firms to halt buybacks and direct that money toward payroll) that would cause inflation of consumer goods as now we have more dollars chasing the same output.

Re: U.S. Suffers Sharpest Rise in Poverty Rate in More Than 50 Years

#135

Post by cle »

cle wrote: post #46
pradn wrote: post #26

The poverty rate is an awful metric. It simply counts the number of people who earn below a certain income. So people dipping $1 below the line are counted the same as those dipping $10,000 below the line. So, poverty-rate alleviation measures can be implemented simply by focusing on the top end of those under the limit - of course, this doesn't help much. What we should really worry about is the poverty gap - the am…

I don’t know how this is typically measured (or measured in this specific case because I can’t find the actual paper), but do economists generally apply the same dollar threshold to everyone across the country, or do they account for regional cost of living?

Apparently the standard poverty threshold does not vary by region. There is a measure called the "Supplemental Poverty Measure" which does take into account certain cost-of-living adjustments, amongst other things. More info here: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...

It does not look like this research used that measure. Given the income disparity between urban and rural areas, I'm worried that this could paint a misleading picture about who exactly is suffering here.

(I'm definitely no expert here, just a lay person trying to interpret this.)

Re: U.S. Suffers Sharpest Rise in Poverty Rate in More Than 50 Years

#136

Post by krupan »

willcipriano wrote: post #29
__blockcipher__ wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, the reason minimum wage is bad policy and unethical is that you're making it illegal to pay someone below a certain threshold, which stated differently is making it illegal for a sufficiently unskilled worker to get any job. But I don't see how minimum wage could be inflationary, but if it were it certainly wouldn't be enough to "wipe out savings" - that requires hyperinflation.

If you made a minimum wage that was significantly above the prevailing wage I'd expect to see inflation in a economy like the US. My wager would be that dollars that are currently chasing returns in the stock market may shift to wages resulting in those same dollars now trying to buy consumer goods rather than stock. We might not call that inflation in the economy generally as after all stocks would "deflate" during…

“ That said, with the exception of very rural areas the wage floor for most moderately skilled or unpleasant work is above $15 an hour already”

In other words, the whole point of minimum wage laws is really just grandstanding by politicians?

Re: U.S. Suffers Sharpest Rise in Poverty Rate in More Than 50 Years

#137

Post by d1zzy »

dragonwriter wrote: post #115
tharne wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why we always go back to income inequality, it's not a useful metric. What matters is how many people are living good, prosperous lives. You can have have income equality simply by keeping everyone equally poor, or you can have prosperous societies where some people have a lot more than others, but everyone is doing well. Income inequality is only meaningful if the amount if wealth and prosperity in a so…

> I don't know why we always go back to income inequality Because it's pretty well established that outside of the most abject poverty, relative deprivation is a more significant factor driving experienced disutility than absolute material condition, contrary to the naive assumptions many people make that increasing individual absolute material condition increases individual utility independent of external context. T…

That reads as an argument but my lack of English skills makes it hard to understand what exactly are you saying.

However, it does seem to me that that you still haven't addressed one of the main points you're responding to, that we can have perfect equality where everyone lives as the average person below poverty line today. Would that be a better society considering your arguments?

Re: U.S. Suffers Sharpest Rise in Poverty Rate in More Than 50 Years

#138

Post by bradlys »

hintymad wrote: post #123
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #2

Alternative title: "events of 2020 case poverty rate to regress to 2017/2018 levels" Frankly I'm surprised the effect was so small considering that the industries hit hardest by covid employ a heck of a lot of people who are near the poverty line to begin with. I would expect all those people to be pushed to the other side of the line resulting in a much more dramatic increase in the poverty rate.

It's pretty obvious that there has been an enlarging wealth gap and poverty rate has increased. What I don't understand is that the current narrative is to attribute such unfortunate events to systemic racism. Shouldn't we at least look at class difference, shift of industry trend, impact of policies, i.e., take the holistic view?

I think part of the idea is that systemic racism lead to class difference, shift of industry trend, impact of policies. If you set people up for failure for one generation to trap them into poverty, it's enough work done to keep further generations trapped too. Just look at how segregated neighborhoods/cities still are. It's mostly because of policy from a long time ago that still has an effect to this day.

Re: U.S. Suffers Sharpest Rise in Poverty Rate in More Than 50 Years

#139

Post by edmundsauto »

syops wrote: post #131
hintymad wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty obvious that there has been an enlarging wealth gap and poverty rate has increased. What I don't understand is that the current narrative is to attribute such unfortunate events to systemic racism. Shouldn't we at least look at class difference, shift of industry trend, impact of policies, i.e., take the holistic view?

I contend that the real tragedy of American politics is that what ought to be class/labor issues gets sidetracked into race issues. If poor whites would stop thinking in terms of race and instead think in terms of class and economic justice then real progress could be made. Lyndon Johnson had a famous quote about just this. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-convince-the-lowest-wh...

Genuine question: how can poor whites join with POC, given how the systemic racial injustice narrative has developed? I would be worried about a “this protest isn’t about your situation, white person” response. (Given the current tenor)

Re: U.S. Suffers Sharpest Rise in Poverty Rate in More Than 50 Years

#140

Post by UnpossibleJim »

coliveira wrote: post #73
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #2

Alternative title: "events of 2020 case poverty rate to regress to 2017/2018 levels" Frankly I'm surprised the effect was so small considering that the industries hit hardest by covid employ a heck of a lot of people who are near the poverty line to begin with. I would expect all those people to be pushed to the other side of the line resulting in a much more dramatic increase in the poverty rate.

We haven't seen all the effects of 2020. First, all these analysis are lagging indicators. Second, the poverty that started in 2020 will continue to impact lives for many years into the future.

I think one thing that 2020 that has brought to the forefront, that has been overlooked to date, how the groundwork for exporting many "white-collar" jobs the US is ready to do. I don't mean to be the Chicken Little in the room, but India and Eastern Europe have great programming resources at fractions of the cost. Management have become used to a work force that is remote and uses remote commits with communication almost entirely by email.

While there will be companies that choose to "work American", I'm sure, much like the auto industry in the 70's and 80's moving manufacturing to Mexico and importing to America while maintaining the monichre of "an American company" like Ford and Chevrolet, shareholders will demand costs be kept down. There are no shipping costs on digital goods =/

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