Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps?

Mickey Kaus looks at this table:

Table 22. Number and Percent of People Below
50 Percent of Poverty Level: 1975 to 2005

 _____________________________________
 Year         Total    Number  Percent
 _____________________________________
 2005......  293,135   15,928      5.4
 2004 14/..  290,617   15,693      5.4
 2003......  287,699   15,264      5.3
 2002......  285,317   14,068      4.9
 2001......  281,475   13,440      4.8
 2000 12/..  278,944   12,592      4.5
 1999 11/..  276,208   12,887      4.7
 1998......  271,059   13,914      5.1
 1997......  268,480   14,594      5.4
 1996......  266,218   14,412      5.4
 1995......  263,733   13,892      5.3
 1994......  261,616   15,404      5.9
 1993 10/..  259,278   15,971      6.2
 1992 9/...  256,549   15,547      6.1
 1991 8/...  251,192   14,059      5.6
 1990......  248,644   12,914      5.2
 1989......  245,992   11,983      4.9
 1988......  243,530   12,676      5.2
 1987 7/...  240,982   12,469      5.2
 1986......  238,554   12,677      5.3
 1985......  236,594   12,380      5.2
 1984......  233,816   12,770      5.5
 1983 6/...  231,700   13,590      5.9
 1982......  229,412   12,806      5.6
 1981 5/...  227,157   11,189      4.9
 1980......  225,027    9,804      4.4
 1979 4/...  222,903    8,553      3.8
 1978......  215,656    7,708      3.6
 1977......  213,867    7,474      3.5
 1976......  212,303    7,016      3.3
 1975......  210,864    7,733      3.7

and catches Eric Alterman in a mistake:

Maybe Cocooning Is Easy!: Eric Alterman, in a post titled "Extreme Poverty is US," writes (quoting today's NYT poverty numbers story):

Again, moreover, "although the numbers living below the poverty line held steady between 2004 and 2005, there has been a sharp increase in those living in extreme poverty."

That's funny, because if you look at the Census numbers, they show... a jump of... well, zero from 2004 [in extreme poverty].... I contend that "zero" is not a "sharp increase."... Alterman... [is] quoting... NYT reporter Rick Lyman paraphrasing "advocates for the poor"--specifically Robert Greenstein, whose influential outfit (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities) specializes in devising esoteric measurements to suggest that good poverty news is really bad poverty news...

But what is the "good poverty news" in the Census Bureau's report? What is the "good poverty news" in this table?

Is it that there are more people in extreme poverty than in any year since 1993? Is it that the proportion of Americans in extreme poverty is greater than in any year since 1997? Is it that the extreme poverty rate is 0.9%--2,336,000 people--higher than in 2000, at the last business cycle peak?

Is it that the overall poverty rate stands at 12.6%, 0.1% less than last year? Is it that the overall numbers in poverty stand at 36,950,000, 50,000 less than last year? Is it that 5,369,000 more people were poor last year than at the last business cycle peak, in 2000? Is it that the poverty rate is higher than in any year from 1999 to 2003 or from 1969 to 1979? Is it that the number of people in poverty this year and last year is greater than in any year since 1994?

If you parse Kaus closely, he doesn't actually say that there is "good poverty news." He talks about how Bob Greenstein "specializes in... suggest[ing] that good poverty news is really bad poverty news" and about how Eric "Alterman [got] his bogus spin." He wants his readers to think that there is a whole bunch of good poverty news that is being spun as bad, but he doesn't actually say so.

This is, I think, a reason why the only people who should read this stuff are trained professionals who already know the issues very well (and hence learn nothing at all from Kaus and his ilk). They won't lie to you--quite. They will do their best to leave you with a misleading impression--in this case, that the Census Bureau's poverty report was good poverty news that is being spun as bad. And it will probably work--unless you're a trained professional.

---

Here's what Lyman reports from Bob Greenstein:

Census Reports Slight Increase in %u201905 Incomes - New York Times: advocates for the poor pointed out that, although the numbers living below the poverty line held steady between 2004 and 2005, there has been a sharp increase in those living in extreme poverty. The average person living in poverty actually earned $3,236 less than the poverty line -- $19,971 for a household of four -- in 2005, the highest such gap ever measured by the Census Bureau, said Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal research group. And 43 percent of the poor earned less than half of the poverty limit, Mr. Greenstein said, again the highest such percentage ever recorded.

"This is further evidence that the nation's economic recovery has had very limited reach, with many low- and medium-income families not sharing in the game," he said...

Comments

[howard]

we all know that mickey kaus lives to play these stupid games.

the question is, who lives to read mickey kaus? why does anyone still publish him?

[Nan]

Brad,

You read Mickey Kaus? Why?

He is a Coulter groupie and a GOP hack.

Why bother responding to him?

[Ellen1910]

So, is an increase of 1.5% or 235,000 people living in extreme poverty a "sharp increase" as Greenstein opines or isn't it?

After Greenstein, Alterman, and Kaus, that's the only issue.

[Enlighten-NewJersey]

Do these poverty stats include the 12 million illegal aliens in the U.S.?

[derek]

The good poverty news is that after more than five years in office, Bush has not quite succeeded in bringing the poverty percentage back up to the level that his pappy bequeathed the country. He has achieved the same number, but not the same percentage.

Yet. He has over two more years in office with which to reverse the progress of the Clinton Presidency.

[dj moonbat]

See, we wouldn't need "purges" of the ranks of "liberals" if we didn't have *(&%(*&E(%s like Kaus and Lieberman.

[Robert Waldmann]

Brad -- I think you understate Kaus's dishonesty. The census BLS etc have a formal definition of "poverty" and of "extreme poverty" but that does not mean that everyone must use those words they way they do. Head count indices are very very crude and using two head counts not just one remains a very crude analysis.

The poverty gap statistic is a very useful addition to the pair poverty head count & extreme poverty head count. It is obviously not an "esoteric measurement" and, while I have great respect for the CBPP, I wouldn't guess that they were the first to come up with this obvious measurement.

I guess Kaus uses "esoteric" to mean "you can't look it up in an official document but actually have to do some arithmetic."

Since, the census does not have a copywrite or trademark on the orginary English words "extreme" and "poverty" anymore than Fox news has a trademark on "Fair" and "balanced", Alterman, Lyman, and Greenstein were not caught in an error. Their claim is perfectly reasonable. Lyman and Greenstein explain what they are saying clearly enough that Kaus's objection can only have been made in bad faith.

By the way there is extensive commentary on the effects of welfare reform based on the poverty rate (search for plumer on the blog). It is easy to get confused using the poverty rate. If the most pessimistic alarmist panicked terrified pants pissing forecaster of the effects of welfare reform (the paptppfewr) had been right, one would not expect an increase in the poverty rate, since AFDC benefits are too low to get a family over the poverty line.

Note that the extreme poverty news does not confirm the panic of the paptppfewr (me). He (I) was full of it, since the extreme poverty rate is the same as it was when welfare reform was introduced. This is a remarkable achievement given the late 90s boom, but things are not as bad as they look What has happened to the poverty gap ? I don't know and I should.

Also look at the 70's. What was St Jimmy doing to hammer the poor ? I think it is obvious that the reason for the huge increase in extreme poverty is the erosion of the real value of AFDC benefits (not indexed to inflation). In fact I would expect more action post 96 on the extremely extreme poverty rate or something, since AFDC was not enough in all states to get families over 50% of the poverty line.

Should I maybe be doing some arithmatic not dumping on Kaus ?

[Bild Wissenschaftler]

There's also something to say about the index that measures poverty itself:

http://www.policyreview.org/138/eberstadt.html