Soon Every American Will Be Poor

Government manipulation of the definition of poverty will soon insure that every American will end up being counted as poor.  If you think that's an exaggeration, then you haven't been paying attention to changes in the way the Census Bureau measures poverty.

A directive to the bureau from the Office of Management and Budget in 1978 altered the metrics for determining who is poor.  It mandated a more complex formula for defining poverty, including the use of income thresholds, family size, geographic location, benefits and scores of other economic benchmarks.

The result has been that the numbers of poor people in the United States increase annually, irregardless of the economy.  Under the current census formula, the bureau recently reported there were 47.8 million people living in poverty in the world's wealthiest country at the end of 2009.

When Americans think of the poor, they imagine homeless, starving people, without adequate clothing whose very existence is threatened.  The reason for this perception is that the media, federal government, charitable organizations and churches have churned out propaganda portraying a distorted stereotype of the poor.

The only problem is that an average poor person in America today does not fit that stereotype. In reporting the poverty figures, the mainstream media consciously ignored census and research data that would have shed more light on what it means to live in poverty today.

For example, there is data that shows 43 percent of all poor households own their own homes.  That average home is a three-bedroom with one-and-a-half baths, a garage and a patio.  More than half of all poor households report having a car, air conditioning, color television, VCR, cable TV, a cell phone, refrigerator and stove.  Forty percent own computers.  More than 35 percent have answering machines.

This data comes from two sources: the Census Bureau and the Residential Energy Consumption Survey, conducted regularly by the Department of Energy.  The later research provides a broad measurement of household amenities and home ownership. 

Under the Census Bureau's definition, a household can still be counted as "poor" with an income of more than  $47,000.  Since the national median household income is $50,221, that means nearly one half of all Americans could conceivably be deemed in poverty in the not too distant future.

If that seems far fetched, consider the Census Bureau revised its poverty formula again for 2009.  That adjustment alone added four million more Americans to the rolls of the poor.  After originally reporting there were 43.6 million poor people, the bureau changed its methodology and this month raised the 2009 official count to 47.8 million.

By world standards, the American poor seem almost middle class.  The average home in Europe is far smaller than the three-bedroom household owned by the American poor.  The per capita income for most countries falls well below the U.S. poverty line.  And that doesn't include nations on the African continent.

Here's a sample of average personal incomes from developed countries, compiled by the World Bank:  Spain, $31,650; New Zealand, $29,050; Greece, $27,240; Portugal, $21,860; Korea, $19,890; Czech Republic, $17,870; Croatia, $13,760; and Chile, $9,940.  The incomes are stated in dollars to make a fair comparison with the United States.

It's no secret why the federal government would want to change its criteria to raise the number of people considered poor.  The more poor people the government finds; the bigger the Washington bureaucracy required to solve the issue; the more taxes needed to fund federal poverty programs.  

Americans by nature are a compassionate lot.  They want to assist those in need.  However, government disinformation and statistical fraud unfairly distort the situation.  Without reliable data, it is impossible to determine the extent of poverty and to address it adequately. 

That's why ending the current census charade should be a top priority for all who really care about helping the poor.