[leeroyjenkins11]

In 2012, the federal government spent $668 billion to fund 126 separate anti‐ poverty programs. State and local governments kicked in another $284 billion, bringing total anti‐ poverty spending to nearly $1 trillion. That amounts to $20,610 for every poor person in America, or $61,830 per poor family of three.

Over, the last 50 years, the government spent more than $16 trillion to fight poverty.

Yet today, 15 percent of Americans still live in poverty. That’s scarcely better than the 19 percent living in poverty at the time of Johnson’s speech. Nearly 22 percent of children live in poverty today. In 1964, it was 23 percent.

https://www.cato.org/commentary/war-poverty-50-despite-trill...

[rgbrenner]

Here's an analysis of that claim: https://poverty.umich.edu/files/2019/10/PovertySolutions-Ant...

Here's Tanner's paper where he lists the programs he includes: https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/american-w...

I'll include a few here: Pell grants, SSI, and Medicaid. Including healthcare is the only way to reach that number, since it's the source of the vast majority of that total.

[gruez]

> Here's an analysis of that claim: https://poverty.umich.edu/files/2019/10/PovertySolutions-Ant...

Why should healthcare spending be excluded from "anti-poverty" spending? The fact of the matter is that in the US, healthcare is privatized and people have to pay for it directly or indirectly (ie. by their employer). Therefore if the government is helping to pay for it, it's an anti-poverty program. It's not any different than food stamps counting as anti poverty spending.

[taosx]

Private healthcare in US seems to be criminally greedy.

Classifying healthcare spending as "anti-poverty" spending may lead to an inaccurate assessment of the effectiveness of these programs. Including healthcare spending in the evaluation of anti-poverty initiatives, it could potentially mask the true impact of more targeted interventions, such as food stamps, housing assistance, and cash transfers. This could, in turn, hinder the development of more effective policies and programs aimed at reducing poverty.

[gruez]

>This could, in turn, hinder the development of more effective policies and programs aimed at reducing poverty.

I don't buy this. If you want to figure out what the most effective policies/programs are, you'd need to run analysis on each program separately. If you did that, you would be able to separate out which parts had the greatest ROI. Dropping the most expensive component on the basis that it's ineffective is basically cherrypicking, especially when the claim that's being analyzed is whether government anti-poverty programs as a whole are effective or not.

[93po]

Searching for similar stats are all just people bitching about the welfare state, it seems like a completely made up stat.

[macintux]

Speaking as someone who’s been trying to help someone stay alive for several years, there is massive inefficiency and bureaucracy standing in the way of people actually getting help, presumably because we’d rather see many people suffer than a few people cheat the system.

[ianai]

Then there's my dad. I had to fight him to apply for benefits when he became disabled. While waiting at the benefits office I overheard one person behind the glass say to the person working with us "you going to get those crackers [a slur for white people] some cheddar [slang for money]?" He was ultimately denied and, of course, didn't appeal - he just identified deeply with the rejection.

[FormerBandmate]

That’s literally systemic racism.

It’s also profoundly inefficient and stupid. Credit card companies can approve you in 15 seconds, there is no reason the government couldn’t

[jjeaff]

It's a particular incidence of racism by someone working in a system, but I wouldn't call it "systemic racism" because there is not a recurring, broad, historical problem of white people not being able to get welfare. In fact, the majority of welfare recipients are white.

Additionally, most of the poverty programs I am familiar with are not a subjective decision process. You either meet the requirements or you don't. If you don't, they tell you why and you either agree or you have to appeal and get whatever incorrect information they have on file corrected.

[steele]

Beyond the bureaucratic nightmare, stigmatization of government assistance is terrible. When one considers the shape of wealth inequality in the US, the cruelty expressed by the prejudiced employee is likely due to their perception of the novelty and some entitlement to abuse the power dynamic. Not excusing or downplaying the event, marginalized people (including but not limited to those with disabilities) regularly experience indignities built into many institutions. Despite being visibly White, the concept US whiteness since it's inception has always been amorphous, exclusive by design, and generally adjusts definition based on the complicity to harm the 'other'.

[dpbriggs]

Why do you feel the need to apologize for racism? It isn't necessary in this conversation.

[jjeaff]

I see no apology, but why do you seem to take offense at pointing out the existence of racism?

[steele]

Did I apologize for your reading comprehension too? Is my apology in the room with you right now?

[KrugerDunnings]

I live in Europe and a large part of my (extended) family works in the social sector and for all the good they do I can never shake the impression that the first to benefit from all these social programs is the people that organise them. Same thing with a lot of startup and business accelerators or professional networks they love to talk about how they are helping but I've learned that they do (almost) nothing for you and that it is better to invest your time in executing your own plan.

[njarboe]

It is estimated that the state of California paid out more than $30 billion in fraudulent COVID related unemployment benefits. At this point these systems can be massively cheated when made easy (ie., no in-person application required). It has been estimated the 35% of unemployment claims are fraudulent[1]. Not just a few people unfortunately (or maybe just a few doing a huge amount of fraud, but fraud is a big problem).

[1] https://edd.ca.gov/siteassets/files/unemployment/pdf/fraud-i...

[jnovek]

Unemployment is a completely different beast from all of our other social programs in the US. In a relative sense, it’s brainlessly easy to get on unemployment.

Lumping all social programs together and pointing out the one with the biggest fraud issue is disengenious —- e.g. the SSA reports that our disability programs have a fraud rate of less than 1%.

[KerrAvon]

The right answer to this is to prosecute the offenders, rather than implementing a rigorous means test process and shutting out people who might actually need help. It’s less efficient, but it’s the only humane option.

[slv77]

A lot of the fraud originated overseas with some of it from state sponsored groups. Prosecution is essentially impossible.

[Beldin]

$30 billion? In fraud - the total benefits for this one emergency expense amounting to about $90 billion? For a state of 40 million inhabitants?

Seems a tad steep.

[unyttigfjelltol]

If it were just a defense against "cheating" this would make sense. Imagine changing the word to "extortion" or "ransom" and the issue is obvious-- when you pay people to do bad things, the problem gets bigger.

However, the systems actually are gatekeeping on the basis of desert or merit. That's a more debatable virtue but the only viable alternative is to instead push out aid through local, flexible, discretionary face-to-face interactions between people who know one another well...... like when you helped a personal friend......

[jnovek]

Just lower the amount of means testing for programs like SSDI. I’m not even advocating for getting rid of means testing, just make it less onerous. It’s incredibly difficult to navigate and, ironically, puts a lot of pressure on people who are disabled.

[chiefalchemist]

> there is massive inefficiency and bureaucracy standing in the way of people actually getting help,

That's because that bureaucracy isn't there to serve its clients. Its there to serve itself. Those are politically popular jobs that flourish on backs of the underserved and impoverished. There's no incentive to reduce the friction when for the most part poverty is seen as a personal moral failing. It's not the system. It's "them". And the system perpetuates itself and that belief.

[thegrim33]

That's moving the goalposts though, now it's "yeah, they actually do put in all this money and time and effort to fix it, it's just muddled in bureaucracy so doesn't work well". The original claim was that the effort/resources aren't being put towards it, but they are.

[watwut]

I don't think that is moving goalposts. Some of that bureaucracy exists and consumes money explicitly because certain political party wanted to make access to programs punishing and harder.

They are not money spent to help anyone, they are money spend to prevent access to existing programs.

[ModernMech]

Yup, what’s more, is that people who are not trying to help have inserted themselves into the money flow.

Take the intensive case management for instance. If you are severely disabled and in need of assistance, the state will pay for a case manager to help you with life.

Case managers are paid $7 an hour when alone, $14 with a client. When they are with a client, they are instructed to do mostly paperwork. The goal here is to not actually help people, but to fill out paperwork in proximity to them to collect state funds, while paying social workers peanuts without benefits. So the case manager helping the impoverished is herself, financially insecure.

So where is all the money going?

A company manages the case managers, and they pocket the bulk of state funds. The management, board, and directors all live in very large houses and drive very expensive cars. Case managers drive 2002 Honda Accords without AC or a radio. Clients live in squalor, just happy to have someone doing their paperwork nearby. This is the American caste system.

So I think you can see, even when we fund social services, the money still ends up in the hands of the wealthy. It’s just what capitalism is designed to do.

[indymike]

> It’s just what capitalism is designed to do.

Capitalism is simply allowing private citizens to own, in part or full, the means of production such as farms and businesses. I'm not sure that capitalism is responsible for a decision about dispersing government money to create terrible jobs resulting in mismanagement and horrible customer service.

> money still ends up in the hands of the wealthy

I think the definition of wealthy requires money end up in someone's hands.

[fuzzfactor]

>simply allowing private citizens to own, in part or full, the means of production such as farms and businesses.

To me this is just free enterprise and private property rights.

Capitalism is more like when the strength of the capital itself gives it a significant or outsized influence compared to the fundamental enterprise and private ownership interest.

Usually when Other People's Money is involved in ways where a chain of resources & debt is built that can influence enterprise and ownership in ways that might not take place otherwise.

Both positive and negative outcomes can be leveraged or exaggerated, for instance in the case of a benevolent capitalist compared to a greedy one.

Edit: not my downvote, bump back up from me

[indymike]

> To me this is just free enterprise and private property rights.

Capitalism is just a system which allows private citizens to own the means of production.

Everything else is just people trying to overload a word to create a savior or boogey man.

Thank you for the vote correction.

[none_to_remain]

So you latch on to the outsourced part and complain about capitalism, or we could latch on to the government-funded part and complain about socialism.

I think more than capitalism v. socialism here the problem is that we are governed by filth who are looting public treasuries for themselves and their buddies.

[lr4444lr]

That's not how I read his comment at all: if the government grants are not doled out with oversight, it's entirely rational for greedy actors to minimize the dollars ultimately reaching the intended targets.

[prottog]

> we are governed by filth who are looting public treasuries for themselves and their buddies.

Hence the conservative ideal of smaller government with limited powers, so that there is both less to loot from as well as a lesser ability for those in power to direct those treasures to themselves.

[HarryHirsch]

And then it's put into practice and it looks like Alabama, they are running the natural experiment in Alabama since 1901, the 1901 constitution and its impacts on the state are well-known.

To get any kind of local tax raised, the local authority has to go through the oligarch-controlled legislature in Montgomery, where it would be shot down. And like that you end up with county roads on a 70-year replacement schedule.

[ModernMech]

I'm focusing on the bad actors, who are the ones extracting all of the money from the system as profit. That's what makes this dysfunctional. If they were gone, the people trying to help would have more resources. Notably, these people hold titles associated with the artifices of capitalism. The social worker doesn't need a board of directors. She knows what needs to be done. It's the board of directors who need the social worker -- not to fix anything, but to do the appearance of work while they collect rent checks from the government. It's disgusting.

We can imagine this enterprise organized another way which actually helps people. Fewer Ferrari dealerships would make sales, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

[Kye]

An accessible overview of some of the hurdles people face: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJDk-czsivk

[93po]

> In 2012, the federal government spent $668 billion to fund 126 separate anti‐ poverty programs.

This is simply not true or at best, misleading. The 2012 expenditure was $3.6 trillion, and 70% of that was defense, social security, medicare, and interest expense. You're saying more than half of the remaining spending for the entire government was anti-poverty? That makes zero sense.

I assume what you meant was 'authorized', and it was an amount spent over a long period of time. $20k per person, great. What percent actually gets to them? Maybe half at best? Great, so $10k. Over how many years? 5? Ok, so $2k a year at best estimates. Realistically it was less and over a longer period.

Cool, poverty is solved.

[bradleyjg]

Poverty is a moving target. The level of absolute deprivation that was moderately common in the 60s is virtually unknown today.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_S._Clark%27s_and_Robe...

[HarryHirsch]

Whatever that means - only yesterday (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35391868) the fact that US life expectancy on average is the same as the life expectancy of the citizens of Blackpool, England was discussed here. Blackpool is the most deprived city in the country, and that really says something - England isn't rich and has many post-industrial wastelands.

Your statement is reminiscent of the prophet Ezekiel and his "Defiled Bread" (Ez 4:12-17), as that passage is called. Instead of human feces, Ezekiel got to use cowpats, but unlike you, the prophet still found it disgusting.

[selimthegrim]

Isn't there some speculation that this refers to what went into offerings at the Temple?

[HarryHirsch]

First time I hear of that theory, do you have any references into the literature?

I have always interpreted the passage literally, as a reenactment of what the citizens of Jerusalem would have to endure while under siege by the forces of King Nebukadnezar.

[vaidhy]

Cowpats are what poor people used as fuel. It was a common practice in India till about 20 years ago. Mix cow dung with hay, make it flat, dry it and you can use it as fuel. I am sure it is not India specific thing.

The same cowpat is also used for to burn the offerings in the temples.

[selimthegrim]

https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/scatalogic-rites

[wefarrell]

That article suggests high taxes are the reason for the increase in poverty from 1964 to 2012 yet taxes on the top tax bracket were cut in half over that period.

It's clear as night and day that the reason why wealth inequality and poverty has been skyrocketing over the last 50 years is due to plummeting tax rates on the wealthy.

[rrdharan]

That might be clear (perhaps even tautological) for wealth inequality; as others are discussing, it’s much less “clear” for poverty.

You can certainly draw connections - wealth inequality leading to housing inequality leading to homelessness, but that’s a bit more complicated.

[jnovek]

$20,610 is ~$1717/mo.

I’ve been poor. I deal with chronic pain and, for a long while, it rendered me unable to work.

First: $1717 is a very low amount of money to live on.

I covered my costs in about $1200/mo while I received from room and board from family. It was extremely difficult to get my spending down to that, I had to default on loans and I expect it will take the better part of a decade to build credit again.

Second: how does one obtain this $20,610? I was denied virtually every social program I tried to sign up for. I was only able to cover my costs thanks to the charity of others.

[gabereiser]

In America, we don’t believe you are unable to work until you bring a lawsuit in front of a judge with evidence. Any social programs to give money to needy citizens is held up in bureaucratic red tape so they can get higher salaries (paid from funds allocated to the program) and waste more money. My son is autistic and is unable to work and it took four court appearances to get his social security benefits approved.

[GVIrish]

I would argue that the red tape is not so bureaucrats can make more money, it's that Americans have a very, very strong aversion to seeing people benefit from social programs that they think are undeserving. So we put all of these hurdles up to make things 'fair'.

Just look at the difference in outrage between when there's some story of someone on public assistance buying something like smartphone, vs the reaction when we found out about all of the businesses abusing the PPP loan system. Or the fact that many of the PPP loans were forgiven.

It's like as a country we're fine with wealthy people abusing the system. But then we turn around and would rather let 100 deserving people struggle just so maybe one person can't get a free ride.

[mattgreenrocks]

Americans seem to have a special aversion to weakness. Being poor is a facet of that:

On public assistance and buying a smartphone? “That’s irresponsible and abusing the system!”

Wealthy and taking PPP loans or dodging taxes? “That’s smart and opportunistic thinking!”

In other words, the rationalizations exist to justify beliefs that were conceived long before these examples were discussed: namely, the wealthy are inherently more virtuous and better people all around.

We are unable to think differently on this because digging into it too much risks tearing down most people’s fragile motivational structures around their own striving.

[sokoloff]

Wasn't the entire point of the PPP scheme to give away money to be used for payroll? I didn't use it, but it seemed to me like from the outset that it was designed to give away money, notionally documented as a loan, but one which would be forgiven if used to provide payroll continuity to employees. (In other words, documented as a loan so they could claw it back legally if you didn't use it for payroll or other approved purpose, but if used for payroll, it was a loan in fictional name only.)

I don't think that was a mis-use of the system, but rather the intended use of it. (We can argue whether it was a good or bad idea, but it plainly seems within the bounds of the program as designed/intended.)

[jnovek]

First: I’m sorry about your son’s experience. My impression is that something like a court appearance would be overwhelming for even an autistic individual with lower support needs.

This is pretty much where I left off with social security. Luckily for me, not long after my rejection I found a treatment option that helped me get back to work. The timeline for my first appeal before a judge would’ve been a year or more.

[sokoloff]

I think there are many (probably most) people who are sympathetic to and willing to open the taxpayers’ coffers to support people who are genuinely and durably unable to work.

I also think there are many (perhaps most) who are reluctant/unwilling to extend those same benefits to those are merely unwilling to work.

So, we use bureaucrats and courts to confirm that a given situation is the former and not the latter.

[ec109685]

Likely most of that money goes to children and children’s family.

It is misleading cato complains about general poverty but not look into where the money is going.

[pessimizer]

The government is very good at filtering that money through processes and contractors that extract as much of it as possible. The main benefit of reducing the safety net to a basic income is the elimination of a massive amount of administrative overhead.

As a random example of subsidy of the wealthy, every year, the government loses at least $70B to just the mortgage interest deduction, which is allowed for the first $750K of the value of up to two homes. That is $2,160 for every poor person in America, or $6,480 per poor family of three.

edit:

> Little of the deduction’s benefits go to households that have difficulty affording a home. Data from the Census Bureau’s American Housing Survey show that in 2011, 10.5 million homeowners faced what HUD calls “severe housing cost burdens,” meaning they paid more than half of their income for housing. Some 90 percent of those homeowners (and about 40 percent of all homeowners) had incomes below $50,000, yet JCT estimates for 2012 show that homeowners with incomes below that level received only 3 percent of the benefits from the mortgage interest deduction.

At the same time, 77 percent of the benefits from the mortgage interest deduction went to homeowners with incomes above $100,000, almost none of whom face severe housing cost burdens. Some 35 percent of the benefits went to homeowners with incomes above $200,000; taxpayers in this income group who claimed the deduction received an average subsidy of about $5,000.

https://www.cbpp.org/research/mortgage-interest-deduction-is...

[ec109685]

Only one home is deductible: “ The interest you pay on a mortgage on a home other than your main or second home may be deductible if the proceeds of the loan were used for business, investment, or other deductible purposes. Otherwise, it is considered personal interest and isn't deductible. Main home. You can have only one main home at any one time.”

[eigen]

> Only one home is deductible

> "other than your main or second home"

2 homes are deductible.

[vaidhy]

No.. only one home.. but you get to choose which of your homes you can deduct.

[zerocrates]

You're wrong: the deduction covers your "main home" plus a "second home" of your choice. Both are combined under the same $750,000 limit.

[ec109685]

Can you cite the statute?

“ Mortgage interest. Many U.S. homeowners can deduct what they paid in mortgage interest when they file their taxes each year. (The rule is that you can deduct a home mortgage's interest on the first $750,000 of debt, or $375,000 if you're married and filing separately.”

[notahacker]

> The government is very good at filtering that money through processes and contractors that extract as much of it as possible. The main benefit of reducing the safety net to a basic income is the elimination of a massive amount of administrative overhead.

This isn't really a benefit though, as the administrative overhead costs a lot less than the alternative of giving everyone money.

[smugma]

“There is a Clinton-era welfare programme called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. In 2020, poor families received just 22 cents in every dollar it disbursed. The rest was used by states to pay for things such as job training and even abstinence-only sex education.”

[prottog]

What an absolute gem! An example of both that there is nothing as permanent as a temporary government program, and a government program whose name only marginally reflects what it actually does.

[dlp211]

The program wasn't temporary, the assistance is. TANF was never meant to raise people out of poverty, it is a program designed to help those that fall on hard times to recover quickly, hence the job training.

[totetsu]

The recent Last Week Tonight episode about USA welfare TANF funds covered how a lot of the money budgeted for poverty relief might not even be used for it.

[chiefalchemist]

Put another way, the government has funded programs, programs that do well to perpetuate the programs, but too little to actually address the problem they were created to address.

It's the Poverty Industrial Complex.

That aside, with regards to the data / statistics you've sited, my understanding is, many experts believe the income levels set by the government to define the poverty line are artificially low. If the line was more realistic the poverty rate would be much higher.

If this is even a slight bit true, then the government's "war on poverty" is another lost war.

[gabereiser]

The government authorized. Don’t say spend. Spend assumes it went where it was supposed to go. Authorizing and then absconding with funds is what really happened.

[tlogan]

This presents a highly complex challenge. It is really not so simple.

Consider San Francisco, for instance. As a city with predominantly liberal and Democratic values, it is surprising that public schools have been closed throughout the year. And we all know how that had significant negative impact on underserved and economically disadvantaged children.

While some fortunate children have responsible and hardworking parents that just take kids with them leave them in the car while they clean houses (first hand experience), this is not the case for the majority: not supervision at all.

Addressing this issue is far from straightforward. When attempted to raise concerns, I was may labeled as anti-science and trumpy. I also mentioned that private schools have managed to remain open, their effor was to close them rather than finding solutions to support public education.

I really do not know and I think nobody who is not poor cares. Regardless what they say.

[hestefisk]

By contrast, the US total budget request for military spend is $773B in 2023. That says something about the government’s priorities.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_...

[dlp211]

Defense spending is a third rail in politics.

[GalenErso]

I'm not an expert on poverty, but I don't think it's as simple as concluding that anti poverty programs are a waste of money. For one, looking at the cumulative amount over time is a pointless metric. Second, we cannot deny that a lot of people were genuinely helped by these measures and managed to climb out of poverty and start giving back to society. Third, poor Americans still have a superior standard of living than most of the world. American poverty is its own league.

"Even if you're stuck in the bottom 5% of the US income distribution your standard of living is about equal to that of the top 5% of Indians. Even if you're in the bottom 10% your standard of living is about the same as that of the bottom 10% in other rich countries (which, so we are told, care so much more and do so much more) like Sweden and Finland. And when we sweep everything together into some sort of quality of life measure the American poor are better off than the French or German poor."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/06/01/astonish...

The Poorest 20% of Americans Are Richer on Average Than Most European Nations

https://fee.org/articles/the-poorest-20-of-americans-are-ric...

"A groundbreaking study by Just Facts has discovered that after accounting for all income, charity, and non-cash welfare benefits like subsidized housing and food stamps, the poorest 20 percent of Americans consume more goods and services than the national averages for all people in most affluent countries. This includes the majority of countries in the prestigious Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), including its European members. In other words, if the US “poor” were a nation, it would be one of the world’s richest."

Also, official data on US poverty may overestimate the problem.

"US low-income households greatly underreport both their income and non-cash benefits"

"There has been “a sharp rise” in the underreporting of government benefits received by low-income households in the United States. This “understatement of incomes” masks “the poverty-reducing effects of government programs” and leads to “an overstatement of poverty and inequality.”"

[ArnoVW]

Comparing us revenues with eu ones is tricky. Yes, in raw dollars those poor are better off in the US. But, and I admit to not having read any of those links, my guess is that if you compensate for things like public transport, healthcare, education and other things, the US doesn't compare favorable when you're poor.

[pg_1234]

Yeah. Increasingly entrenched wealth inequality, and failing public services means the USA as a whole is looking more and more like a 2nd world state these days. The 1st world part is increasingly just for the upper classes.

[pg_1234]

This study could be summarized as "the poorest 20% of USA residents have as much money spent addressing their poverty as the average citizen of a European country".

But once you pick through the details you realize they are looking at expenditure , not outcomes.

Considering this, and given the gross corruption and inefficiency of US welfare, most notably healthcare, it might be more accurate to say that "The poorest 20% of USA residents have as much money wasted on a farcical attempt to support them ..."

[robocat]

GalenErso wrote “the poorest 20 percent of Americans consume more goods and services”, which doesn’t match your summary at all.

[kodah]

It's also notably harder to get to move up the economic ladder, the perception of employment stability, and trust in employment are dead in the American mind. My sister is a teacher who has a background in law, but she loves teaching. Sadly, teaching is what keeps her in poverty. It boggles my mind that those who craft new economic units are of some of the least paid.

Maybe even more perplexing is that wealth inequality is geographic of all things: https://itep.org/the-geographic-distribution-of-extreme-weal... This is in part due to the fact that we continue to tax income rather than wealth, and those of vying for scraps are among the first to champion such policies. That all ties back to the first thing I said, which is that economic fluidity is a long ladder now.

[hanniabu]

> That amounts to $20,610 for every poor person in America, or $61,830 per poor family of three.

You're indirectly assuming it all gets passed down. If I were to guess I'd say only 70% does.

[tmn]

It’s kind of pointless for me to comment. But that comment in no way assumes it all gets passed down. They are just putting the number in perspective.

[AlbertCory]

You can look at an anti-poverty program fund flow as:

money in ==> gov't processing ==> agencies providing service ==> service

(the "agencies providing service" would be NGOs or local organizations.)

You can look at your figures as "money in." The relevant figure is "service."

It's a lot harder to get that number.

[gedy]

> Yet today, 15 percent of Americans still live in poverty. That’s scarcely better than the 19 percent living in poverty at the time of Johnson’s speech.

The poor then had much more thing poverty than we see today. Probably biggest change is more drug abuse now though.

[landemva]

> bringing total anti‐ poverty spending to nearly $1 trillion

How much of that is spent on administering the programs and paying those administrators? May be more effective to simply consolidate it into a negative income tax.

[aintgonnatakeit]

Per the Urban Institute, a less right-wing source, the poverty rate was 13.7% in 2021.

https://www.urban.org/research/publication/2021-poverty-proj...

So a minor investment in making people’s lives suck a little less has improved the rate by almost a third.

I agree with the Cato Institute that we should invest more in the safety net.

[RobotToaster]

So over 25 years the poor got the same amount wealthy bankers got in 2008?

https://theweek.com/articles/479867/federal-reserves-breatht...

[gruez]

The dollar amounts aren't really comparable considering that anti-poverty spending is a handout whereas the bailout under TARP was in exchange for assets.

>The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is a program of the United States government to purchase toxic assets and equity from financial institutions to strengthen its financial sector [...]

>Through the Treasury, the US Government actually booked $15.3 billion in profit, as it earned $441.7 billion on the $426.4 billion invested

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program

[InitialLastName]

In exchange for essentially worthless assets, no?

Turning $426B in 2009 into $445B in 2014 comes out to an 0.76% ROI, so not exactly a good deal for anyone but the shareholders who didn't lose their shirts.

[gruez]

> In exchange for essentially worthless assets, no?

Clearly not, considering they were able to sell it for a profit later.

>Turning $426B in 2009 into $445B in 2014 comes out to an 0.76% ROI, so not exactly a good deal for anyone but the shareholders who didn't lose their shirts.

I'm not claiming that it's a $0 bailout either. I'm only pointing out that $1 spent on anti‐poverty programs isn't comparable to $1 of TARP spending, so trying to directly compare the two like the parent poster was doing is misleading.

[sitkack]

Catowashing a Fox News article that doesn't cite its sources.

Please make your actual point and not hid behind a libertarian think tank.

https://www.thebalancemoney.com/fy-2012-u-s-federal-budget-a...

[esotericimpl]

Ah yes, the old cato institution nonsense that we spend too much on anti povery programs.

Reason being is because the rich siphon it all off for themselves.

See: https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2003/June/03_civ_386....

Note the CEO of Columbia/HCA who committed the largest medicare fraud in history is now US Senator Rick Scott of Florida who just so happened to have plead the fifth 75 times during his questioning.

[megaman821]

Is this supposed to be evidence that the government is using their anti-poverty money wisely just because it is a "self-own" by the Cato Institute?

[baremetal]

homeless industrial complex

[steveBK123]

I do feel sometimes we've moved into an era where government thinks the objective is spending money, not solving problems.

You see this with homeless services, high speed rail, etc. The ability to write big checks is seen as a win, and the jobs it produces gets pointed to.

The fact that so many remain unhoused and high speed rail remains unbuilt doesn't ring the alarm bells that it should.

In NYC for example we've gone through some recent periods of spending $300/night to house homeless, migrants, hurricane victims, longterm in hotels. I am talking months to years.

It's unfathomable to me that the feds/state/city are spending $100k/year run rate to house people temporarily where the end state is they get kicked out or moved somewhere worse. All this while other homeless live in communal shelters that are filled with violence and crime.

For that price we could be paying 3 years of rent on a decent apartment anywhere outside Manhattan. We could be putting a down payment on a house for them & then employ them in some sort of works program at $20/hour. These are things that could actually allow them to start building their life back up.

[baremetal]

>For that price we could be paying 3 years of rent on a decent apartment anywhere outside Manhattan. We could be putting a down payment on a house for them & then employ them in some sort of works program at $20/hour. These are things that could actually allow them to start building their life back up.

I'm not sure there is any incentive to solve the problem. And there is no accountability for anyone in government it seems, on either side of the aisle, at any level of government.