Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is that if you are trying to measure the effectiveness of government programs you can't exclude their value in your metric. In a very simple stripped down version: * assume 20% of people need public assistance * assume that that assistance has been provided via government programs It is disingenuous to then assert that since 20% of people still need assistance (because you haven't counted the assistance i…
Part of the problem is that "poverty line" is a stand-in for "can (or cannot) afford food and shelter". Part of the problem is that there are two different statistics that need to be measured - the percentage of the population that could not afford food and shelter before assistance - the percentage of the population that still could not afford food and shelter even after assistance Part of the problem is that "pover…
No that isn't at all what I was trying to point out (or "complain" about).
If I can refer to the two stats you listed as "before-assistance" and "after-assistance", then all I'm saying is that is terribly misleading to use the "before-assistance" statistic to assert that we aren't doing enough to help people. At least use the "after-assistance" statistic in order to measure the effectiveness of the programs.
If you don't use the "after-assistance" metric then it doesn't matter how much assistance you give, the "before-assistance" number won't change and you'll continue to have people "living in poverty" even though that really isn't the case (because they have received assistance).