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It's the National Review. You expect them to do anything other than scream and cry non-stop about Obama and the Dems? It's their job.
The key issue here is the escalator clause.
Leftist interpretation (from the HuffPost):
I don't know whether this is a good idea. What I'm pretty sure of is that it's not some sort of brilliantly evil scheme by Democrats to foment class warfare.
-Arrian
The key issue here is the escalator clause.
Leftist interpretation (from the HuffPost):
What the SPM will do, is rise as living standards rise, rather than fall further and further behind -- as is the case with the current poverty measure. Indeed, the latter is "frozen" at the level of a basket of goods and services adequate for families in the 1950s, updated only for inflation. It does not allow for rapidly increasing costs, such as health care and taxes or "new" costs such as child care.
What the SPM won't do is raise the thresholds very much. Because it only includes some costs -- housing, utilities, food and clothing -- it starts at not much above the current, much too low level. In fact, since it will also introduce geographic adjustments reflecting differences in housing costs, the SPM is likely to result in lowering thresholds in less expensive areas such as rural counties or the South below the current federal poverty measure. In short, the SPM is a measure of deprivation, not a full measure of what people and families need to meet their basic needs.
What the SPM will do is take into account the impact of cash and some in-kind benefits, as well as taxes and tax credits. Thus it can measure the impact of aid that improves the well-being of the poor, a good thing. But there is a catch: it only does this for aid that mirrors costs that are in the threshold, such as housing and food. For work-related costs and health care, it only subtracts actual spending from income. As a result, those with enough for the bare basics of food and housing, but are too poor to afford sufficient health or child care, ironically do not get counted as poor.
When the SPM changes are combined, they counter each other, so that the count of the poor will likely increase somewhat, but not by much. At the same time, it does change who is counted as poor. Somewhat surprisingly, When New York City implemented a version of the SPM elderly poverty increased substantially, while the count of poor families with children decreased slightly.
What the SPM won't do is raise the thresholds very much. Because it only includes some costs -- housing, utilities, food and clothing -- it starts at not much above the current, much too low level. In fact, since it will also introduce geographic adjustments reflecting differences in housing costs, the SPM is likely to result in lowering thresholds in less expensive areas such as rural counties or the South below the current federal poverty measure. In short, the SPM is a measure of deprivation, not a full measure of what people and families need to meet their basic needs.
What the SPM will do is take into account the impact of cash and some in-kind benefits, as well as taxes and tax credits. Thus it can measure the impact of aid that improves the well-being of the poor, a good thing. But there is a catch: it only does this for aid that mirrors costs that are in the threshold, such as housing and food. For work-related costs and health care, it only subtracts actual spending from income. As a result, those with enough for the bare basics of food and housing, but are too poor to afford sufficient health or child care, ironically do not get counted as poor.
When the SPM changes are combined, they counter each other, so that the count of the poor will likely increase somewhat, but not by much. At the same time, it does change who is counted as poor. Somewhat surprisingly, When New York City implemented a version of the SPM elderly poverty increased substantially, while the count of poor families with children decreased slightly.
-Arrian
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