We have a 99 percent movement focused on the alleged evils of the top 1 percent, and we have a 53 percent movement claiming to represent those who pay the federal income taxes that keep government up and running. Let’s talk about the 15.1 percent of people in the United States living below the poverty level.
Critics of inequality derive much of their moral punch from the fact that large numbers of American households earn very little pretax income. Federal, state and sometimes local governments provide a variety of transfers to help poor families stay afloat. One of the central ideas behind the 99 percent movement is that we need more government spending to fight poverty and injustice, and that it should be funded by higher taxes on the rich.
If we want to lift people out of poverty, it helps to know the lay of the land. While 15.1 percent of people living in the U.S. are in poverty, the poverty rate for families is 13.2 percent. That is much lower than the poverty rate for single people living alone or with roommates, which stands at 22.9 percent. A big part of the evolving poverty picture is that people are staying single longer than they did in years past.
Children are having a particularly tough time, in part because poor families tend to have more children than those who are better off. For children under 18, the poverty rate is 21.5 percent. And for children under 6, it is a heartbreaking 25.3 percent. Those numbers have crept up in the post-crisis years.
One thing that seems to make a huge difference for poverty is the kind of family you’re in. Married-couple households have a poverty rate of 6.2 percent. Female-headed single-parent households, in contrast, have a poverty rate of 31.6 percent, while the far smaller number of male-headed single-parent households have a poverty rate of 15.8 percent.
This is one reason why many people, on the right and the left, have suggested that getting and staying married is one of the most reliable ways to avoid poverty. In 2002, Isabel Sawhill and Adam Thomas of the centrist Brookings Institution found that the child poverty rate would have been 3.5 percentage points lower than its actual level had the number of female-headed households remained constant between 1970 and 1998. In fact, that number skyrocketed between those years.
Sawhill and Thomas acknowledge, however, that getting and staying married is a challenge, particularly when men who can serve as stable providers are scarce. That scarcity has only grown more severe in the last decade.
Another factor shaping today’s poverty landscape is History, which I’m capitalizing for a reason. It’s not an exaggeration to say that before the civil rights era, African-Americans were the victims of a systematic campaign of state-sanctioned brutalization that had an enormous and lasting impact on family structure and the intergenerational transfer of wealth. Many families benefit from the fact that a distant ancestor was prudent and saved enough money to give the next generation a boost. Over the course of many generations, this historical advantage can add up. Though there are a handful of exceptions, it’s rare for African-Americans to have enjoyed this long-run boost. This contributes to an African-American poverty rate of 27.4 percent.
Newcomers to the United States are also at a disadvantage, particularly those who haven’t had much schooling. People with a high school education or less represent a huge share of the 26.6 percent of Hispanics living in poverty.
If you buy the argument that History counts for something, it’s not that surprising that the poverty rate for non-Hispanic whites is 9.9 percent.
History plays a role in another sense. As of 2008, the poverty rate for non-Hispanic white married couples was 3.1 percent, while that for single-parent white families was 21.7 percent. The gap for black married couples and black single-parent families was of a similar magnitude: 6.9 percent vs. 35.3 percent.
So how is History playing a role in determining who gets married and who does not? As the psychologist Timothy Wilson observes in his brilliant new book “Redirect,” people learn how to form attachments early in life. Those raised in secure, stable, loving environments are far more likely to form stable attachments, like a lasting marriage, than those who were not. Early childhood interventions, like home visitation programs designed to help parents who are at a high risk of abusing their infants, can make an enormous difference over the long term.
The tragic thing about interventions like this is that they are cheap relative to the benefits they deliver. By reforming public pensions, paying the best public employees more money and firing the worst of them, and fixing our broken entitlement programs, we could shift resources to programs that tackle real problems effectively. But those who profit from wasteful government spending won’t give up without a fight. That is why so many of them talk about the top 1 percent rather than meeting the real-world needs of the 15.1 percent.
Critics of inequality derive much of their moral punch from the fact that large numbers of American households earn very little pretax income. Federal, state and sometimes local governments provide a variety of transfers to help poor families stay afloat. One of the central ideas behind the 99 percent movement is that we need more government spending to fight poverty and injustice, and that it should be funded by higher taxes on the rich.
If we want to lift people out of poverty, it helps to know the lay of the land. While 15.1 percent of people living in the U.S. are in poverty, the poverty rate for families is 13.2 percent. That is much lower than the poverty rate for single people living alone or with roommates, which stands at 22.9 percent. A big part of the evolving poverty picture is that people are staying single longer than they did in years past.
Children are having a particularly tough time, in part because poor families tend to have more children than those who are better off. For children under 18, the poverty rate is 21.5 percent. And for children under 6, it is a heartbreaking 25.3 percent. Those numbers have crept up in the post-crisis years.
One thing that seems to make a huge difference for poverty is the kind of family you’re in. Married-couple households have a poverty rate of 6.2 percent. Female-headed single-parent households, in contrast, have a poverty rate of 31.6 percent, while the far smaller number of male-headed single-parent households have a poverty rate of 15.8 percent.
This is one reason why many people, on the right and the left, have suggested that getting and staying married is one of the most reliable ways to avoid poverty. In 2002, Isabel Sawhill and Adam Thomas of the centrist Brookings Institution found that the child poverty rate would have been 3.5 percentage points lower than its actual level had the number of female-headed households remained constant between 1970 and 1998. In fact, that number skyrocketed between those years.
Sawhill and Thomas acknowledge, however, that getting and staying married is a challenge, particularly when men who can serve as stable providers are scarce. That scarcity has only grown more severe in the last decade.
Another factor shaping today’s poverty landscape is History, which I’m capitalizing for a reason. It’s not an exaggeration to say that before the civil rights era, African-Americans were the victims of a systematic campaign of state-sanctioned brutalization that had an enormous and lasting impact on family structure and the intergenerational transfer of wealth. Many families benefit from the fact that a distant ancestor was prudent and saved enough money to give the next generation a boost. Over the course of many generations, this historical advantage can add up. Though there are a handful of exceptions, it’s rare for African-Americans to have enjoyed this long-run boost. This contributes to an African-American poverty rate of 27.4 percent.
Newcomers to the United States are also at a disadvantage, particularly those who haven’t had much schooling. People with a high school education or less represent a huge share of the 26.6 percent of Hispanics living in poverty.
If you buy the argument that History counts for something, it’s not that surprising that the poverty rate for non-Hispanic whites is 9.9 percent.
History plays a role in another sense. As of 2008, the poverty rate for non-Hispanic white married couples was 3.1 percent, while that for single-parent white families was 21.7 percent. The gap for black married couples and black single-parent families was of a similar magnitude: 6.9 percent vs. 35.3 percent.
So how is History playing a role in determining who gets married and who does not? As the psychologist Timothy Wilson observes in his brilliant new book “Redirect,” people learn how to form attachments early in life. Those raised in secure, stable, loving environments are far more likely to form stable attachments, like a lasting marriage, than those who were not. Early childhood interventions, like home visitation programs designed to help parents who are at a high risk of abusing their infants, can make an enormous difference over the long term.
The tragic thing about interventions like this is that they are cheap relative to the benefits they deliver. By reforming public pensions, paying the best public employees more money and firing the worst of them, and fixing our broken entitlement programs, we could shift resources to programs that tackle real problems effectively. But those who profit from wasteful government spending won’t give up without a fight. That is why so many of them talk about the top 1 percent rather than meeting the real-world needs of the 15.1 percent.
