Writing on National Review Online’s Corner blog, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg looks ahead to the Census Bureau’s release on Monday of poverty numbers based on a new measurement and analysis of those new numbers in a recent New York Times article:
Some of the reports using these fuller measures — more of them produced by organizations with no particular ideological ax to grind — claim that black Americans are less poor than previously supposed and that some of the officially poor are, well, not poor. This doesn’t mean that these groups are necessarily well-off. But what is revealing is that, as the Times’ piece states, “virtually every effort to take a fuller view — counting more income and more expenses — shows poverty rising more slowly in the recession than the official data suggests.” And if that is not enough, the article goes on to state that “while the official national measure shows a rise of 9.8 million people, the fuller census measures show a range from 4.5 million to 4.8 million.”
Read “Poverty: It’s More Complicated Than You Think” on The Corner.
