The original poverty line was based on having enough money to select a nutritious diet in 1963. It was $3,100/year for a family of four with two adults and two children. In 2005, it was $19,800. In constant 2005 dollars using the consumer price index, the 1963 poverty line would be $18,900. Using the GDP deflator (which is based on changing rather than fixed buying patterns), we get $15,400. That is, a family at the poverty line today will buy different items today implying a $4,400 improvement in the standard of living from 1963 to 2005.

Life expectancy has gone up almost 5 years over that time. The white/black life expectancy ratio has been converging from 1.11 to about 1.07 over the same period.

Both the GDP deflator and life expectancy measures indicate those below the poverty line are getting better off in an absolute sense. A couple more are in this week's Economist. The definition of poverty evolves over time and is more of a curve than a line so that there will alway be people in poverty.

Evidently the term POVERTY means something a great deal different than it used to.

I have two cousins who grew up in the projects in NYC. My uncle dumped his family and my aunt raised my cousins as best she could. She took little help from anyone, (pride) and worked hard for what they had, I now know they were very poor. The people around them were very poor. Few of them had cars, TV, fancy clothes or anything but the essentials of life.

I went to school in several states and had the opportunity to see poor people who lived in state or federal housing, on welfare and barely making it. We all knew who these kids were it was no secret. Most of them had few changes of clothing, most had at least one absent parent ad we knew they were way behind the curve on how they lived compared to those of us from the middle class.

NOW, I drive through a federal housing neighborhood near me to go shopping. There are satellite dishes, big screen TVs plainly in view, NEW cars, kids with $150 UNC, LA Lakers, etc. jackets, $200 running or basketball shoes, almost every unit has bicycles, kids riding toys, wagons, and some units have lawn furniture. Lawn furniture for crying out loud!! THIS is NOT poverty!! This is THIEVERY!!

The people living in the housing units my kids went to school with and the ones my grandson goes to school with have more, better, newer personal property than the working families of the same areas. I don't begrudge people a decent living or decent clothes or adequate housing or $200 sneakers. What I begrudge them is having enough disposable income from my tax dollars in their hand to allow buying stuff I can't afford to buy for my kids or grandkids!!

If you're POOR, how can you buy your kid $400 worth of sports team jackets, jerseys, and hats, and sneakers and the like? If that's poor, gimme some, I don't own a $200 jacket yet!

OK, I'm done call me a bigot!! But remember I didn't mention race, because the people I'm talking about are from all races. One of my daughters-in-law grew up like this. She says all the time that she has less money for "things" now than when she was living at home with her mother, drawing checks for her and her 1st son. So my stories aren't apocryphal or hearsay.

I am not sure how to get taxes lower, but I would not sacrifice democracy to do it. Income transfer has a silver lining; it helps keep a lid on envy. I think it's great that we live in a society where we've redefined poverty to mean more than nutrition. The idea of winning a war on poverty, however, is a contradiction in terms.

I hear you Steve, and I agree. I've seen it happen, sadly even in my own (extended) family.

Cecil,
Thank God you said this. I really thought I was the only one witnessing this. Or I was over blowing it in my own mind.

Sam,
we've LOST the war on poverty. We lost to the formerly impoverished wit the help of Congress. The proof is outlined in all the items I listed above.

In a sense, if people are eating healthier, living longer and can afford higher quality goods, we are making great strides in the war on poverty. In another sense, poverty will be defined on a curve so there will always be poverty. In that sense, it is not unlike the war on drugs and the war on terror.

Sam: "if people are eating healthier, living longer and can afford higher quality goods, we are making great strides in the war on poverty."

Not if said people are doing so on the public dime via fraud. In that case we are creating a new problem as bad or worse than poverty: dependency.

In my entire life of all the people I have known who were receiving government assistance in one form or another I can honestly say that at least 80% did not need or deserve assistance. I’ve known several people who were receiving assistance (food stamps etc) that were at the time in better financial shape than I was, and I’ve never received any such assistance.

As Steve states above, there are those who are living in government subsidized housing, receiving government assistance on food etc. and who are themselves buying $200 shoes, iPods, DVD recorders, PC’s, cable/satellite TV, broadband, widescreen TV’s etc. And this isn’t, in my admittedly limited experience, an uncommon occurrence among assistance receivers it is the norm. This isn’t the easing of poverty it is the subsidizing a lifestyle that these thieves could not otherwise afford. And they’re doing it with MY money.

Who ever said Poor people paid Full Retail? My they are just better bargain hunters.....or something......

William,
even if the poor are better shoppers or are able to get their goods at 50% off, they are STILL spending MY tax dollars on THEIR extravagant lifestyle!!

"they are STILL spending MY tax dollars on THEIR extravagant lifestyle!!"

Steve, I give you permission to designate your tax dollars not to the poor, and I'll designate mine there.

If you exclude military, social security, homeland security, medicare and debt interest, you get only about 30% of budget. Poverty relief ends up as $400B or 16% of federal outlays. That's 3% of GDP. Sorry it irks you, but we're not exactly a welfare state.

Oh I didn't realize it was only 400 billion dollars. Now I feel sorrow for them.

Ahem....

We're not talking poverty relief anymore, we are talking lifestyle subsidy.

"not talking poverty relief anymore, we are talking ... subsidy" Exactly. Poverty relief is migrating to straight income transfer to the less well off. "Poverty" now just means having less money than others. It has lost it's original anchor in having the amount of money needed for the 1963 standard for nutrition, shelter and health. I think it's fair. I will be quite jealous of my daughter's generation if they all make twice what we made and expect a share of the gravy if I fall on (relatively) hard times.

FAIR?

Taking money from me via taxes and giving it to others who lie to get it, don't deserve it or even need it, that is FAIR?

"FAIR? Taking money from me via taxes and giving it to others who lie to get it, don't deserve it or even need it, that is FAIR?"

Cecil, do you think everyone "lies"? What does "deserve" mean? What does "need" mean? I want my MTV. Do I "deserve" or "need" cholesterol medicine that wasn't available in the 60s?

Be glad you don't live in the Netherlands where government spending is 40% of GDP or twice ours. I guess you rooted for the Sheriff against Robin Hood. We get to vote what's fair. Good luck at getting the government to be more hard hearted. If it bothers you enough, move to Andorra, Bahamas, Uruguay or Monaco--no income tax.

Did I say everyone lies? No, I didn’t but from my own personal experience I believe that a large percentage, maybe even a majority, of those receiving federal assistance do so via fraud. These people do not “deserve” assistance because they have the means to take care of themselves and their family without assistance; they can work and provide for themselves just like most Americans do. And they don’t “need” assistance for the same reason. As for needing medicines that are potentially life saving yes I would say that is a need and something federal assistance programs should help purchase for people who CAN’T afford them otherwise. However I do not believe the government should buy Lip-i-tor for someone just so that person can then spend his or her expendable income on MTV, shoes, iPods or DVD recorders. But that is what is happening on a huge scale.

And it matters not to me what the Netherlands or Uruguay does, they are not my problem. I gladly pay my taxes as a US citizen and a beneficiary of all that being one provides me. One of those benefits is having the freedom to voice my opinion on the ways that the government spends my taxes.

Standards change over the years. "Afford", "need", "want" and "deserve" are political words, not economic words. It's a judgement call to say what is moral buying and what is immoral. Economics teaches that it is hurting people to make tradeoffs for them instead of letting them make tradeoffs themselves. I take pride that we have an income equalization program instead of the 60s definition of a poverty program.

If you seek its cancellation, it would be better to focus on incentives, responsibility and retasking a portion of the money to low income workers that repeating Reagan's complaint: "Over a period of about five years, Reagan told the story of the "Chicago welfare queen" who had 80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards, and collected benefits for "four nonexisting deceased husbands," bilking the government out of "over $150,000." The real welfare recipient to whom Reagan referred was actually convicted for using two different aliases to collect $8,000. Reagan continued to use his version of the story even after the press pointed out the actual facts of the case to him."

Well, Sam, you sold me. Stealing $8000.00 is OK.