The Census Bureau's annual report on poverty, released Tuesday, is noteworthy because this year marks the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson's launch of the War on Poverty.
Liberals claim that the war has failed because we didn't spend enough money. Their answer is to spend more. But the facts show otherwise.
Since its beginning, U.S. taxpayers have spent $22 trillion on Johnson's War on Poverty (in constant 2012 dollars). Adjusting for inflation, that's three times more than was spent on all military wars since the American Revolution.
The federal government currently runs more than 80 means-tested welfare programs. These programs provide cash, food, housing and medical care to low-income Americans. Federal and state spending on these programs last year was $943 billion.
(These figures do not include Social Security, Medicare or unemployment insurance.)
Over 100 million people, about a third of the U.S. population, received aid from at least one welfare program at an average cost of $9,000 per recipient in 2013. If converted to cash, current means-tested spending is five times the amount needed to eliminate all poverty in the U.S.
But the Census will almost certainly proclaim that around 14% of Americans are still poor. The present poverty rate is almost exactly the same as it was in 1967, a few years after the War on Poverty started. Census data actually show that poverty has gotten worse over the last 40 years.
How is this possible? How can the taxpayers spend $22 trillion on welfare while poverty gets worse? The answer is that it isn't possible. Census counts a family as poor if its income falls below specified thresholds. But in counting family "income," Census ignores nearly the entire $943 billion welfare state.
For most Americans, the word "poverty" means significant material deprivation, an inability to provide a family with adequate nutritious food, reasonable shelter and clothing. But only a small portion of the more than 40 million people labeled as poor by Census fit that description.
The media frequently associate the idea of poverty with being homeless. But less than 2% of the poor are homeless. Only one in 10 live in mobile homes. The typical house or apartment of the poor is in good repair, uncrowded and actually larger than the average dwelling of non-poor French, Germans or English.
According to government surveys, the typical family that Census identifies as poor has air-conditioning, cable or satellite TV, and a computer. Forty percent have a wide-screen HDTV, and another 40% have Internet access. Three quarters of the poor own a car and roughly a third have two or more cars.
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