Statistics cheat

...STATISTICS CHEAT POVERTY AMERICAN-STYLE A WOMAN I KNOW has raised four children alone, much of the time on remarkably little money Lately, she says, it seems as though some malevolent force has found out where she lives Rarely in "good" health, an accident put her temporarily out of work and into her state's workers' compensation system Since those benefits are frequently late, she often finds herself without any cash for days at a time, and had just been served with an eviction notice when the radiator on the family car blew up in her son's face They can't afford health insurance, so the antibiotics he needs mean one more debt — this time at the drug store She and her children are just five of the 33,700,000 people counted as poor in the government's August 27 report '' Money Income and Poverty Status of Families and Persons in the United States " And except that they have more children than most (the mean number of children in poor families is 2 3), they're pretty typical They're hard-working (two-thirds of poor families include, wage earners), but low-earning (the number of full-time workers living in poverty is growing), and they're not getting welfare (only about one-third of poor families do) Like millions of American families they live in a suburb, belong to a church, and go to the neighborhood schools (one child gets straight "A's," while another doesn't like school at all) They are typical as well in one other respect that differentiates them from Americans with larger incomes their income sources are brutally unreliable They rarely know from one week to the next whether they'll have any money, or how much, because they rely on day labor, seasonal work, or government programs, most of which do not include health coverage or fringe benefits of any kind Spurts of income see-saw with penods of compiling debts, any unexpected expense throws the family budget into chaos — sometimes for months The poverty line for a four-person family may be $10,600, but that doesn't mean that poor families have $200 a week regularly coming m to plan on Furthermore, last year, the number of families with less than $5,000 income all year actually rose Commonweal 630 For families like my friend's, the government's latest poverty report wasn't very encouraging While it's true that the number of Americans living in poverty went down last year, three-fourths of the improvement was m white, two-parent families For most others, like hers, the numbers barely went down Despite a vigorous economic recovery, poverty actually rose for Hispamcs, and for black children under age six There was more poverty among single full-time workers with children, and overall, the poor were getting poorer and less likely to be helped by changes in the unemployment rate Reports like the government's recent one are difficult to read because they consist almost entirely of numbers — no catchy stones, no helpful narrative, just columns and columns of numbers Yet behind each decimal and percentage point are the people who live with poverty, Amencan-style They are people for whom privacy, or kleenex, are luxunes, and for whom one meal a day is standard fare when the money runs out before the end of every month Increasingly, they can't afford telephones, or bus fare, or any of the little things that keep most Amencans in touch with one another Daily they make demoralizing choices — like buying food or paying for medicine, adding to debts or having heat, leaving an eightyear-old at home alone or not going to work In America, poverty is defined as having an income too low to provide even for emergency food needs, but it touches every aspect of daily life White House spokesman Patrick Buchanan said the decline in poverty represented a "triumph" for Reagan policies, and the president called it, "further proof that the greatest enemy of poverty is the free enterprise system " But not all analysts agree with that view For one thing, although the poverty rate declined from 15 2 percent in 1983 to 14 4 percent in 1984, the poverty rate is higher today than it was in 1980 (13 percent), or 1975 (12 3 percent), or 1970 (12 6 percent) Furthermore, the decline in poverty should have been greater given the strength of the economy, budget cuts in programs vital to poor people offset the good effects of economic growth Experience from this and other recessions confirms that while economic recovery is important, it is not enough to make significant inroads into poverty — given who is poor and why The recovery didn't mean any increase in the minimum wage, and it certainly didn't signal an end to lower wages for women and minorities, or to unemployment for the men and women over fifty who lost their jobs to the recession Those people aren't part of Mr Buchanan's "triumph", they're stuck in the poverty count Moreover, with the recovery now slowing down, the poverty decline is leveling off at one of the highest rates in decades But all is not bleak This most recent report (in the government's senes of annual poverty reports) provides confirmation for two important points (1) that government policies directed at preventing and alleviating poverty have an impact, without them, poverty remains high, and (2) poverty continues to go down for the one group on the receiving end of government benefits that are indexed to keep pace with rising prices — the elderly It wasn't the economy or Reagan policies that helped them, but good, old-fashioned, New Deal-style solutions in the form of Social Security and Supplemental Security Income If the latest poverty numbers provide little solace on other points, they are worth a lot on both these counts NANCY AMIDH 15 November 1985 631...