The Plight of the Poor

Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation does some research and comes up with some findings that most people would find stunning:

Q: John Edwards and others lament that 37 million Americans struggle with incredible poverty every day. You say it is not so simple or accurate to think of them as truly poor. What do you mean?

A: Well, when John Edwards says that one in eight Americans do not have enough money for food, shelter or clothing, that’s generally what the average citizen is thinking about when they hear the word “poverty.” But if that’s what we mean by poverty, then virtually none of these 37 million people that are ostensibly poor are actually poor. In reality, the government runs multiple surveys that allow us to examine the physical living conditions of these individuals in great detail.

When you look at the people who John Edwards insists are poor, what you find is that the overwhelming majority of them have cable television, have air conditioning, have microwaves, have two color TVs; 45 percent of them own their own homes, which are typically three-bedroom homes with 1{1/2} baths in very good recondition. On average, poor people who live in either apartments or in houses are not crowded and actually have more living space than the average person living in European countries, such as France, Italy or England.

Also, a lot of people believe that poor people are malnourished. But in fact when you look at the average nutriment intake of poor children, it is virtually indistinguishable from upper-middle-class children. In fact, poor kids by the time they reach age 18 or 19 are taller and heavier than the average middle-class teenagers in the 1950s at the time of Elvis. And the boys, when they reach 18, are a full one inch taller and 10 pounds heavier than the GIs storming the beaches of Normandy. It’s pretty hard to accomplish that if you are facing chronic food shortages throughout your life.

Q: How many Americans would you define as “truly poor”?

A: If you are looking at people who do not have adequate warm, dry apartments that are in good repair, and don’t have enough food to feed their kids, you’re probably looking at one family in 100, not one family in eight.

Read the whole thing. The sad truth is that many people would hate to read this kind of thing -- there are a lot of people invested in the notion that there is a great mass of downtrodden people requiring assistance, particularly from the government. After all, so many government programs are done in the name of the poor and helping the less fortunate. Take that away and advancing the cause of greater government involvement in our lives becomes exponentially more difficult. When John Edwards talks about the "two Americas" and speaks about tens of millions mired in poverty he is setting the stage for government programs to cure these alleged ills. Without a sense of crisis his ability to affect drastic chance is much reduced.

The reality regarding poverty is this: Most cases of poverty in the U.S. today are the result of poor choices rather than insufficient opportunity. As George Will has noted, to avoid poverty all you really have to do is "Graduate from high school, don't have a baby until you are married, don't marry while you are a teenager." I might add "hold steady employment" to the list but Will is basically correct. (further thoughts of his here)

But even if you believe that the poor are the victims of misfortune there is little reason to believe that expanded government is the solution. As Rector notes "Since the beginning of the War on Poverty we have now spent over 11 trillion dollars." 11 trillion dollars. It boggles the mind. Where is the outrage? While the left seethes over the sums being spent every year in Iraq -- and it is considerable -- where is the outcry over the billions spent on poverty to little effect? Is it not instructive that the greatest success against poverty in the last 30 years occurred after welfare reform was passed and the role of the state was reduced?

That leads to a parting thought from Rector:

In 1996, we reformed one small welfare program -- Aid to Families with Dependent Children -- by requiring the recipients or part of the recipients to perform work in exchange for the benefits.

As a result of that, we got a huge decline in welfare rolls, a huge surge in employment and record drops in black child poverty. Unfortunately, the rest of the welfare system -- the remaining 69 programs -- remained unreformed. Until we reform those programs in a similar way, we will make no further progress against poverty.

One down, 69 to go.