Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

B402, How is your homelessness defined. How many of your homeless sleep rough? What percentage of your homeless have jobs?

This post is motivated more than much else by your presumptuous, unjustified and just plain wrong arrogance in your position that you
are more interested and more dedication to social issues such as homelessness than others on the board have been over years.

Related: It's revealing to see from a homelessness search of your posts from 2014 gives this one in support of Manchin in 2021 as your first .. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=162014456 . Nothing before that one in support of a guy who has done less for the middle class in his career than most all other Democrats. The fact which exists from that search of your posts exposes the fraudulent face you have presented here.

That said it is good to see you coming on board even if your heart has never really been into those sort of social issues before now. Anyway, a couple for you:

SilverSurfer, number of homeless children high is framed as "Obama's mission accomplished"??
yet just 3 sentences later
"The report goes on to explain that among the major causes of this
problem are the continuing impacts of the Great Recession that began in 2008........"
Yeah, it was silly of you to post that.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=108262121

A relatively small excerpt from a post of 2014:

29 Uncomfortable Myths About Soaring Poverty In America

---
.. initially a feeling of mine while reading this article was is it an 'apologist for the rich' position? .. then i felt well, assuming for now the facts in it are in fact facts, then on those facts it seems obvious that would be unfair criticism of the article .. i include just below one of the few comments as a preemptive to that 'an apologist effort?' feeling i still had at times while reading ..

...
"Anthony Renier 11 months ago

I would love to see an accurate list of costs pertaining to the poor in this country compared to the costs of “breaks” given to the wealthy and corporations.
!. Social Security income cutoff point.
2. Tax breaks for “unearned” money
3. Infrustructure built to support big business by the taxpayer.
4. Tax writeoffs for luxuries “needed” to do business.
5. Other “gifts” that are unavailable to the average working person that I am unaware of.
Put some work into that and you might actually shine a light on the true nature of our economy.

Tony Renier
Green Bay, WI"
...

which all those here who do strive for as much objectivity we are able to muster would agree with, in fact there are posts on the board which do address Tony's "love to see" list somewhat, a couple of which from 2014 i've included in "See also" at bottom .. of course, the GOP basically, with some/both claiming to be libertarian are continually attempting to wind back some of the poverty alleviation efforts which exist today and which are mentioned in the article ..

NOTE: the before and after difference in the way poverty figures in 1960 and today were/are calculated was new to me, and i hope is new and helpful for some others, too ..
---

So let us indulge ourselves in a little bit of fact checking. Zero Hedge has a piece telling us all 29 Uncomfortable Truths About Soaring Poverty In America. Why not, just for the fun of it, run through how many of them are in fact true? How many are not: and the really important part, which are being misunderstood?

So, off we go:

"1. What can you say about a nation that has more people getting handouts from the federal government than working full-time? According to the latest numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of people receiving means-tested welfare benefits is greater than the number of full-time workers in the United States."

Personally I think I would say that clearly, the welfare state in the US is a lot more generous than people usually give it credit for. We’re endlessly told about how we don’t do enough for those in poverty but it would appear that a lot is done: so much so that a full third of the population is in receipt of benefits aimed at reducing poverty. It all seems quite inclusive to me really.

"2. New numbers have just been released, and they show that the number of public school students in this country that are homeless is at an all-time record high. It is hard to believe, but right now 1.2 million students that attend public schools in America are homeless."

No, I’m afraid not. In fact, this isn’t possible in the slightest. The numbers for homelessness are here ..
homelessness-volume-1-2012-ahar/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer ugc" target="_blank">https://www.onecpd.info/resource/2753/2012-pit-estimates-of-homelessness-volume-1-2012-ahar/.

"In January 2012, 633,782 people were homeless on a single night in the United States. Most (62 percent) were homeless as individuals and 38 percent were homeless as persons in families."

At any one time we have 630,000 homeless people. We cannot therefore have twice that number of children alone being homeless at any one time. This is not one of the mathematical possibilities that this universe offers us.

What is actually being said in the original number is that over the course of a year 1.2 million children will suffer one or more incidents of homelessness. We can still think that this is appalling, that it shouldn’t happen and that we ought to be doing more about it. But it is not true that “right now 1.2 million students that attend public schools are homeless”.

"3. When I was growing up, it seemed like almost everyone was from a middle class home. But now that has all changed. One recent study discovered that nearly half of all public students in the United States come from low income homes."

Well, if you grow up in a middle class area then of course those you grow up with are likely to be middle class. But that nearly half of students coming from low income homes is indeed true. But it’s extremely uninteresting that it is. Here’s the definition of low income they are using .. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/kids-not-alright-nearly-half-212100193.html:

"To be crystal clear, the researchers were not analyzing poverty rates per se. Rather, they tracked at the percentage of children in each state who received free or reduced school lunches, which are only available to students whose families earn below 185 percent of the poverty line. For a family of four, that amounted to about $41,000 in 2011."

As it happens, median household income is around two times that federal poverty line. So, 185% of the federal poverty line is going to be pretty close to the median household income. Median household income being the amount that 50% of households get more than and 50% get less than. So, yes, we would pretty much expect that 50% of children are coming from low income families. Because it’s only in Lake Woebegon that all the children are above average. This is a statistical artifact of the measure they are using as low income, nothing else.

"4. How can anyone deny that we are a socialist nation when half the people are getting money from the federal government each month?"

Socialism is a description of an economic system in which it is the workers who own the productive assets. How much is taxed off one group of people and then given to another is nothing to do with whether a nation is socialist or not. Social democratic perhaps, but not socialist.

"5. Signs of increasing poverty are even showing up in the wealthiest areas of the nation. According to the New York Post, New York subways are being “overrun with homeless”."

Hmm .. homeless-as-panhandling-busts-down/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer ugc" target="_blank">http://nypost.com/2013/10/27/subways-overrun-with-homeless-as-panhandling-busts-down/.

"The ranks of the homeless in the subways, meanwhile, have swelled to 1,841 this year — a 13 percent increase over last year’s tally, the city’s Department of Homeless Services says."

I’m afraid I really don’t have it in me to claim that 1,841 people among a population of over 8,300,000 is being over run with anything.

"6. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately one out of every six Americans is now living in poverty. The number of Americans living in poverty is now at a level not seen since the 1960s."

No, this is not true, as I’ve pointed out in these pages many a time. Many .. http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/09/10/america-has-less-poverty-than-sweden/, many .. http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/10/06/it-is-not-true-that-15-of-americans-live-in-poverty/, many .. http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/09/21/the-correct-us-poverty-rate-is-around-and-about-zero/, many .. http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/09/13/the-new-us-poverty-numbers-everyone-just-everyone-gets-this-wrong/ .. times in fact.

The 15% in poverty measure is the number of people who would be in poverty if we didn’t help them by giving them money, food, housing and health care. It is not the number living in poverty. It is the number in poverty before we help them out of poverty. And as to the comparison with the 1960s, in the 1960s it really was the number in poverty after we helped, now it’s the number before we help.

As to why this is when we calculate the number below the poverty line we look only at cash incomes. This includes any actual money that people might be given to alleviate their poverty. In 1960s America pretty much the only poverty alleviation that was done was to give money to poor people (“welfare”). Today we give very little money directly. But we spend a vastly greater amount in giving people things. Medicaid, Section 8 housing vouchers, SNAP (or food stamps). We also give aid to the low paid through the tax system, with the EITC. However, we do not count all of those things, nor the EITC through the tax system, in our calculation of the number below the poverty line. So, since the 1960s the US measure of poverty has changed. From being one of people who are indeed living in poverty after whatever help they get to one of the number of people who would be in poverty before any help that they get.

When we correct for this the US poverty rate is significantly lower now than it was in the 60s. One estimate .. http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/09/21/the-correct-us-poverty-rate-is-around-and-about-zero/ .. is that it is about half the 60s number.

"7. The gap between the rich and the poor in the United States is at an all-time record high."

No it isn’t, it’s nowhere near it. What is being measured here .. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/17/median-income-falls-inequality_n_3941514.html .. is the Gini index before the impacts of taxes and benefits.

"The Census Bureau’s measure of inequality, known as the “Gini index,” held steady at 0.477 in 2012, but at the record high set in 2011."

The Gini after the influence of taxes and benefits is about 10 points lower, around 0.38. That’s still quite high by industrialised world standards I agree but it is nowhere near an all-time high for the US.

"8. The “working poor” is one of the fastest growing segments of the U.S. population. At this point, approximately one out of every four part-time workers in America is living below the poverty line."

Entirely true I’m sure. But does anyone really expect that every part time job will raise you above the poverty line? Doing one shift a week at a burger stand should be enough to live on? Seriously?

"9. According to numbers provided by Wal-Mart, more than half of their hourly workers make less than $25,000 a year."

True again: but then a good portion of their hourly workers are part time workers too. So again, why would anyone think that a single part time job should raise you above the poverty line?

Continued -- https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=107376098