Ranks of Impoverished and Uninsured Increased in 2003

[Jason Levine]

Story (http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-08-26-census-poverty_x.htm)

OK, let's see the Cato Institute refute this one.

[Union Carbide]

http://www.quartertothree.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=13096

[Doug Erickson]

Why, sir, it's not MY fault the poor are lazy and unhealthy! If they don't like it, they should get better jobs! Why should I be forced at gunpoint to support these dirty slackers with my hard-earned dollars!

The war's over, Lebowski; the bums lost!

[MrJoshua]

Population grew too. The percent remaind flat. Not that 15% poor is necessarily a good thing, although our poor make the Chinese peasants drool.

[Ben]

"The income of the median U.S. household was virtually flat at $43,318 after a two-year decline. The gap between rich and poor also was basically unchanged."

Reading is fun.

[Jakub]

Population grew too. The percent remaind flat. Not that 15% poor is necessarily a good thing, although our poor make the Chinese peasants drool.
Percentage wasn't flat. It grew from 12.1% to 12.5%.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/08/26/census.poverty.ap/index.html

[Anders Hallin]

"The income of the median U.S. household was virtually flat at $43,318 after a two-year decline. The gap between rich and poor also was basically unchanged."

Reading is fun.
Median income is stable in a recovery? That's not good, Ben.
It's not like, when the economy turns downwards again, the wages will lag behind and keep going upwards.

Also, women's income compared to men's decreased by 1.5% :/

[Ben]

It's not much of a recovery. But you just moved the goalposts. It's not getting better, but it's not getting worse, either.

[Anders Hallin]

It's not much of a recovery. But you just moved the goalposts. It's not getting better, but it's not getting worse, either.
The other numbers, the increase in people living in poverty, means it is getting worse. The median income wouldn't really make that better even if it had increased, now it stayed the same, and when something stays the same in this economic system, it's generally seen as extremely negative.

Why this recovery isn't noticed by workers is the same now as it was several month ago. NY Times op-ed (http://www.redefeatbush.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=63).

[Ben]

What? The number of people increased. The percentage living in poverty increased by 4 tenths of a percent.

And wow, I thought you moved the goalposts before. But now not improving is extremely negative? But just in this economic system, right? In other economic systems... Yeah, that sentence can't be finished.

In any labor model you'd care to use, consumer surplus increases when you allow capital or labor to move freely. Check out my badass MSPaint graph:
http://img43.exs.cx/img43/760/econgraphqt3.jpg

The dashed lines are the equilibrium wage rate for "home".

More or less, globalization is the cause of the increase in employer's share. That op-ed guy is a class warfare idiot.

[Jakub]

Ben, do you have a point any longer?

First you say it was just the number of people below the poverty line that increased. OK, we clarify and prove that the PERCENTAGE of the population below poverty increased.

Great, now you're arguing... what, exactly? I can't tell. That Bush is doing a good job? That this is still a recovery? I truly, honestly don't know.

[Ben]

What are you talking about? First I just quoted the median income and gap numbers. Then I explained that the gain in raw numbers of poor is mostly explained by the increase in population, I used the goddamn 4 tenths number in my post. Now Anders is going on about how not getting worse is extremely bad or something, and I'm talking to him about how that doesn't make any sense and replying to his linked op-ed piece.

You guys are so pathetically simple minded. Everything has to be about whether Bush is a bad president. Every time anyone disagrees with the lies, distortions, and just regular stupidity that gets churned out in this forum there's a collective head-scratching then a response of, "Well, if you don't think Bush is a good President, what's your point?" Like you can't conceive of a world where people do more than yell "No he isn't" and "Yes he is" at each other.

My point is to act like fucking adults. Read the whole article. Think about the actual facts, not whether it could be spun to make Bush look bad. Just because someone is on the same side as I am about Bush doesn't mean I have to agree with every stupid or dishonest thing they say.

[Jason Levine]

Leaving aside whether or not the numbers represent a meaningful increase, I find that 45 million without health insurance really scary. The U.S. health care system, which I work inside of, is careening toward total meltdown. I'm not sure what the answer is. I'm not all that thrilled with the Canadian system, especially when I see my clients servicing self-paying Canadian patients who came down here because they couldn' get treatment up there. My criticism of Bush on this issue isn't the number. Obviously he's not responsible for the great bulk of it. My criticism is his indifference. Indifference to the issue in general, and indifference to allowing benefit-paying jobs to be outsourced and replaced, if at all, with non-benefit paying Wal-Mart jobs.

[chet]

Yes Ben, those numbers look good. That is why Bush is using them in his latest campaign ad - to trumpet the economic recovery. Yeah. Yeah.

Chet

[Zarathustra]

What are you talking about? First I just quoted the median income and gap numbers. Then I explained that the gain in raw numbers of poor is mostly explained by the increase in population, I used the goddamn 4 tenths number in my post. Now Anders is going on about how not getting worse is extremely bad or something, and I'm talking to him about how that doesn't make any sense and replying to his linked op-ed piece.

You guys are so pathetically simple minded. Everything has to be about whether Bush is a bad president. Every time anyone disagrees with the lies, distortions, and just regular stupidity that gets churned out in this forum there's a collective head-scratching then a response of, "Well, if you don't think Bush is a good President, what's your point?" Like you can't conceive of a world where people do more than yell "No he isn't" and "Yes he is" at each other.

My point is to act like fucking adults. Read the whole article. Think about the actual facts, not whether it could be spun to make Bush look bad. Just because someone is on the same side as I am about Bush doesn't mean I have to agree with every stupid or dishonest thing they say.

Bravo! :wink:

.

[Jakub]

Ben, you still don't explain your point.

I really don't understand what you are arguing. After it got proved to you that not only the number of poor increased but the ratio, you made a non-sensical post.

[Zarathustra]

Leaving aside whether or not the numbers represent a meaningful increase, I find that 45 million without health insurance really scary. The U.S. health care system, which I work inside of, is careening toward total meltdown. I'm not sure what the answer is. I'm not all that thrilled with the Canadian system, especially when I see my clients servicing self-paying Canadian patients who came down here because they couldn' get treatment up there.


I agree, but I am aware of the fact that over 70% of those without health insurance can afford it if they choose to forego some luxuries, such as hi-dollar Nikes, Starbucks coffee, cell phones, computer games, etc and other bling-bling.

Still, you are right, something needs to be done. The system we have now costs the insured and the taxpayer disproportionately. It's reminiscent of the days before Social Security. Everyone knows that they will someday grow old and dependant (if they don't die from illness or accident). Many people lived within their means and saved for retirement. But so many did not that the govt had to step in and force them to save a portion of their wages for old age (Social Security). How does that make you feel, when you don't have the discipline to take care of your own affairs and you need the govt to do it for you?

One proposal I've heard is to make health insurance deduction mandatory from workers who do not buy their own or work for a company with a plan. I'm all for that. Then everyone who works will have health insurance. And they can take pride in paying for it.

My criticism of Bush on this issue isn't the number. Obviously he's not responsible for the great bulk of it. My criticism is his indifference. Indifference to the issue in general, and indifference to allowing benefit-paying jobs to be outsourced and replaced, if at all, with non-benefit paying Wal-Mart jobs.


I agree with you here too, the Pres is making a mistake by not doing something about the health care issue now. As for the jobs going overseas, who listened ten years ago when Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan said the same thing?? Hardly anyone.

[Jason McCullough]

More or less, globalization is the cause of the increase in employer's share.

Huh? I thought it was strong productivity growth combined with an extremely weak labor market.....

[Ben]

Hey, McCullough's back. That camping trip cost you dozens of posts, you better call off work or something. In my opinion, the reason the labor market is so weak is because of increased capital and labor mobility.

Jakub- The percentage increased by an insigificant amount. The economy isn't getting better or getting worse. In short, this news isn't, it's just being spun as things getting worse for political gain.

Chet- I did say the numbers were good, right? Why don't you quote me on that?

Levine- I don't really know where I stand on health care for more or less those reasons. 45 million uninsured sucks, but I hear lots of horror stories about quality of care from the socialised medicine countries. There may not be a right answer, just two different wrong ones.

[Jason McCullough]

Ben, do you have any numbers on big labor/capital mobility jumps to the third world in the last ten years? Overall international trade is only like 20% of the US economy, and virtually all of that goes to other first-world countries. Total trade to the third world/industrializing nations is a rounding error. I know Krugman's written a lot on this (some advanced trade topics got him his Clark medal), and he doesn't think it amounts to much.

[Ben]

At least according to John Kerry's whiny ads labor and capital movement have increased sharply in the past few years.

So, uh, no. This isn't just my crazy theory to explain it, but it's close. Grains and grains of salt.

[Jason McCullough]

Well, he's wrong if he's talking about the non-first world. The big story of the last decade has been the explosion in first world investment in the US.

I can't find any numbers on capital or labor mobility to non-first world nations. It's your assertation; do you have any?

As a baseline, this Krugman article from 1994 establishes non-first world flows were a non-concern then:

http://www.pkarchive.org/trade/harvard.html

[chet]

Ben, my bad it takes brains to understand sarcasm.

You are trying to say these numbers are not like those damn dirty liberals are pretending they are. So if the numbers aren't what others are saying they are, why isn't bush touting them?

Thats right, because the numbers aren't good, and when an adminstration sits here and tries to tell us "Four more years of my economic recovery is what this country needs", it rings a little hollow when there isn't positive movement.

But again, I assumed you could understand sarcasm and were able to take multiple data points and assemble them into a bigger picture, which you have never been able to do. Anytime anyone presents you with the bigger picture, you cry foul because you don't understand. Ben, why do you hate the big picture?

Chet

[Charles Stevenson]

Move to Los Angeles Ben!

There are over 80,000 homeless people who live there!

Then there are the working poor...