Poor numerology - US Census Bureau report on number of Americans living in poverty deserves closer examination - Editorial

National Review, Nov 1, 1993

The U.S. Census Bureau has released its annual poverty report, claiming that 37 million Americans - 14.5 per cent of the population - were "living in poverty" in 1992. Something odd, surely?

Census defines as "poor" any family which has an "income" below the official poverty threshold ($14,335 for a family of four in 1992). In 1992 federal, state, and local governments spent a record $306 billion on welfare programs for low-income Americans, more than three times the amount needed to lift all "poor" Americans above the poverty threshold. And yet official statistics show the percentage of Americans who are "poor" is now at the same level as when the War on Poverty started in the mid-1960s.

The conundrum occurs in part because Census omits most welfare when counting "incomes," missing large chunks of cash welfare and ignoring food, housing, and medical aid on principle. Also missing are tens of billions earned "off the books" to avoid onerous taxes and government regulation.

Thus we should not be surprised that the unpublicized Labor Department survey of household expenditures consistently shows that low-income people spend $1.85 for every $1.00 of income Census reports they have. When subsidized housing and health care are added, that $1.85 rises to $2.40.

The inaccuracy of the Census poverty report is no accident. As Heritage Foundation welfare analyst Robert Rector points out, the poverty report was created by the Johnson Administration as an advertising tool for the War on Poverty. It is designed to deliberately under-count incomes and exaggerate poverty in order to promote welfare spending.

With a mixture of fecklessness and catatonia, the Reagan and Bush Administrations presided over the Executive for 12 years without fixing the official poverty report. Then Bushies were shocked when liberals used the report to depict them as callous toward the poor. Republicans have never managed to be more than an apologetic tin can tied to the end of this process. But tell us something new.