|
|
| Dimensions: 6'' x 9'' |
 |
| 190 pages |
|
|
AEI Press
(Washington)
|
|
| Publication Date: October 2008 |
|
|
| Paperback |
| ISBN: 978-0-8447-4246-5 |
| Price: $ 20.00 |
Add to Cart  |
|
| Examination Copies |
|
|
|
|
Click here to view The Poverty of "The Poverty Rate" as an Adobe Acrobat PDF
Click here to view the press release for The Poverty of "The Poverty Rate"
Since its inception in 1965, America's official poverty rate (OPR) has been the single most important statistic used by policymakers and concerned citizens to evaluate success or failure in the nation's ongoing struggle against material need. But in a critical new examination of this widely followed measure, Nicholas Eberstadt charges that the OPR is, in reality, "a broken compass"--a flawed index generating increasingly misleading numbers about poverty in the United States.
The OPR was originally intended to track an absolute level of poverty over time by comparing a family's reported pretax income against a corresponding poverty threshold. But for the past three decades, the OPR has reported trends that are jarringly inconsistent with other statistical indicators of material deprivation. What is the reason for this curious discrepancy? Eberstadt suggests that the OPR's most serious problem is its implicit assumption that poor families will spend no more than their reported annual incomes--in other words, that their income levels are an accurate proxy for their consumption levels. In the decades since the OPR was unveiled, the disparity between reported income and expenditures has progressively widened, making income an ever less reliable predictor of consumption patterns--and, consequently, living standards--for America's poorer families.
In The Poverty of "The Poverty Rate," Eberstadt contends that the defects of the current poverty rate are not only severe but irremediable. Income-based measures cannot offer a faithful portrait of consumption patterns or material well-being in the United States. Central though the OPR has become to antipoverty policy, this "untrustworthy yardstick" should be discarded and replaced by more accurate measures of deprivation.
Nicholas Eberstadt is the Henry Wendt Scholar in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
The "Poverty Rate" in Historical Perspective
Why This Book
A Road Map for This Study
1. What Is the Official Poverty Rate, and What Does It Actually Measure?
2. Poverty Trends in Modern America, according to the Official Poverty Rate
3. The Official Poverty Rate versus Other Statistical Indicators Bearing on Material Deprivation in America: Growing Discrepancies and Contradictions
4. Systematic Differences between Income and Expenditures among Poorer Households in Modern America: A Blind Spot for the Official Poverty Rate
Unresolved Technical Criticisms of the Federal Poverty Measure
Contrasting Measure of Material Standing: Income versus Consumption, Consumer Expenditures, and Consumer Outlays
Income versus Expenditures for Lower Income Americans: Evidence from the Consumer Expenditure Survey
Do Reported Expenditures Understate Consumption Levels for Lower-Income Households?
The Declining Reliability of Income as a Predictor of Household Budgets for Poverty-Level Families
5. Accounting for the Widening Reported Gap between Income and Consumption for Lower-Income Americans
Unsustainable "Overspending" by the Poor?
Changes in CE Survey Methods and Practices
Income Underreporting
Increased Year-to-Year Income Variability
A Continuing Puzzle
6. Trends in Living Standards for Low-Income Americans: Indications from Physical and Biometric Data
The Principal Categories of Expenditures for Low-Income Consumers
Food and Nutrition
Housing and Home Appliances
Transportation
Health and Medical Care
Living Standards for America’s Poor: Constant Progress Under A "Constant" Measure
Conclusion: Wanted--New Poverty Measure(s) for Modern America
The Case against the Official Poverty Rate
Don’t "Mend" It--End It
New Directions
Appendix
Bibliography
About the Author
