-Caveat Lector- : Subject: Ever-Present Yet Nonexistent Poor : Date: Thursday, April 01, 1999 5:22 PM : : From http://www.fair.org/extra/9901/rector.html : : Extra! : : January/February 1999 : : The Ever-Present Yet Nonexistent Poor : : For Heritage's poverty expert, numbers mean what he says they mean : : By Seth Ackerman : : As a poverty specialist for the conservative Heritage Foundation, Robert : Rector is one of the right-wing media machine's most prolific pundits. In : 1996, the year of the welfare reform debate, he was cited in media outlets : an average of more than 15 times a month (Nexis). Rector also feeds a vast : network of right-wing talkshow hosts and syndicated columnists who pick up : and broadcast his findings. Yet for all his influence, Rector's work is a : mess of misleading statistics and specious arguments all contrived to : accomplish a single goal: to cut spending on the poor. : : In 1995, Rector testified before Congress that "since the onset of the War : on Poverty, the U.S. has spent over $5.3 trillion on welfare. But during : the same period, the official poverty rate has remained virtually : unchanged." Rector's figure--which he soon updated to $5.4 trillion--is : grossly misleading: It includes huge amounts of spending not directed : towards families on welfare. : : The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities calculated that approximately 70 : percent of the federal spending that Rector classified as "welfare" went to : households that did not receive Aid to Families With Dependent Children, : the core welfare program in recent decades. Instead, most of the money went : to non-AFDC households with elderly, disabled or "medically needy" : individuals, as well as students and low-income workers--not groups most : people would associate with "welfare." : : Even if Rector's $5.4 trillion figure were accurate, it would need to be : put in perspective. Spending on "national defense" since 1964 overshadows : even Rector's inflated "welfare" number, exceeding $8 trillion at the time : of Rector's testimony--and that figure does not include spending on : intelligence, foreign military aid and other military-related items. : : Despite its flimsiness, Rector's charge echoed through the media. The Los : Angeles Times published a column by Rector (7/11/95) making the $5.4 : trillion claim. He repeated the figure on a PBS NewsHour panel (12/26/95). : Tony Snow picked it up in a column in USA Today (9/25/95) and Linda Bowles : published it in a Chicago Tribune column (7/31/96). Syndicated columnist : Walter Williams then placed it in the Cincinnati Enquirer (11/26/95) and : Dallas Morning News (12/9/95), among other papers. The figure reappeared in : the Arizona Republic this year in a news article about welfare fraud : (4/19/98). : : Erasing Hunger : : Despite his 1995 claim before Congress that 30 years of welfare spending : had not reduced poverty, Rector has at the same time argued for years that : poverty has fallen so steeply since the War on Poverty that virtually no : one in America today is really poor (see Footnote*). This argument was : enunciated by Rector in a 1990 Heritage Foundation "Backgrounder" titled : "How 'Poor' Are America's Poor?" and Rector has updated the paper several : times since then--always around the September release of the Census : Bureau's annual poverty report. Rector's report is given a different name : each time it's released--this year's version was called "The Myth of : Widespread American Poverty"--but the content is virtually identical from : one year to the next. : : Rector writes in the 1998 report that "despite frequent charges of : widespread hunger in the United States, 84 percent of the poor report their : families have 'enough' food to eat; 13 percent state they 'sometimes' do : not have enough to eat, and 3 percent say they 'often' do not have enough : to eat." But his figures are taken from the "food sufficiency" portion of : the 1988-1991 Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted by the : Department of Health and Human Services, which is considered by many : researchers to be an inadequate measure of hunger. He fails to mention in : his report the authoritative 1995 Food Security Survey, performed by the : Census Bureau on behalf of the USDA, which was designed to improve upon the : old "food sufficiency" measure. : : The Census study found that in addition to the 14 percent of poor : individuals found to be hungry that year, another 25 percent of the poor : were classified as "food insecure." That means those households had a : "limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods : or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially : acceptable ways." For example, 81 percent of respondents in households : classified as "food insecure" said that sometimes in the past 12 months the : food that they bought "just didn't last" and they "didn't have money to get : more." 63 percent said they could sometimes provide "only a few kinds of : low-cost food to feed the children" because they "were running out of money : to buy food." : : Nationwide, 13.8 percent of Americans, poor and non-poor, were either : hungry or food insecure--a number identical to the 13.8 percent poverty : rate that year. In other words, while it is true that not every person : counted as officially poor lacked food, for every officially poor person : who didn't lack food, another (officially "non-poor") person did. : : Curiously, despite his omission of the Census Bureau's more recent : findings, Rector was not unaware of them; he refers to the Census Bureau's : study in a footnote. One can only wonder how Rector happened to come across : the newer report while leaving out its salient findings. : : The Wealthy Poor : : Rector makes much of the fact that many poor people own cars. "Seventy : percent of 'poor' households own a car; 27 percent own two or more cars." : But Rector does not stop to consider that many of these households might : need cars to get to their jobs. In fact, the 69.7 percent of poor : households that Rector reports as having one or more cars in 1995 roughly : mirrors the 61.4 percent of poor households with one or more workers in : that year. : : Rector has claimed that "poor Americans live in larger houses or : apartments" than "the general population in Western Europe." Presumably as : evidence of this assertion, he included in this year's report a chart : titled "International Comparison of Living Space." However, what the chart : actually compares is the average floor space per person in certain European : cities, such as Paris and Athens, with the average floor space in all poor : U.S. households--22 percent of whom live in rural areas and 33 percent of : whom live in suburbs. (Even with such an egregious bias, his numbers are : underwhelming: The mostly rural and suburban homes of the U.S. poor are : only about one-fourth larger than the average home in notoriously crowded : Paris.) : : The intent of Rector's dubious number-crunching was to make his point that : "there is a huge gap between the 'poor' as defined by the Census Bureau and : what most ordinary Americans consider to be poverty." He was more right : than he knew. That same year, the National Opinion Research Center : conducted a poll of "ordinary Americans" asking the question: "What amount : of weekly income would you use as a poverty line for a family of four : (husband, wife and two children) in this community?" The official poverty : line for such a family that year was $14,654 a year, or $282 weekly. : Sixty-four percent of respondents suggested a figure greater than $282. : : The following year, the Center for the Study of Policy Attitudes conducted : a poll in which respondents were told the current poverty line and asked : whether they thought the line should be "set higher, set lower, or kept : about the same." Fifty-eight percent said the poverty line should be higher : and 32 percent said it should be kept about the same. Only 7 percent said : it should be lower. The respondents who thought the poverty line should be : changed suggested an average level of $19,400--more than $4,600 higher than : the actual level that year. (Given the percentage of "non-poor" people who : have trouble buying enough food, this seems like a more realistic : standard.) : : All these flaws did not keep Rector's poverty "research" from being taken : seriously by various media outlets--not just by Rush Limbaugh (9/25/98). : His most recent paper prompted a news article in the Atlanta Journal & : Constitution (9/25/98) and columns in such papers as the Kansas City Star : (9/26/98), Christian Science Monitor (10/7/98) and Chicago Tribune : (11/25/98). : : [FOOTNOTE:] * Rector tries to reconcile these arguments by cautioning that : "higher material living standards should not be regarded as a victory for : the War on Poverty. Living conditions were improving dramatically and : poverty was dropping sharply long before the War on Poverty began." But if : these "dramatically" improved living conditions did not come from : government programs, where had they come from? Certainly not from an : improved job market; in January 1995, when Rector presented his testimony : to Congress, jobs were neither better-paying nor more plentiful than they : had been two decades earlier. The unemployment rate was a half-point higher : than in 1973 and real hourly wages for the bottom tenth of workers were 12 : percent lower. : ------------------------------------------------------------------------ : : : Think Tank Monitor is a joint project of FAIR and the Institute for Public : Accuracy. : : : ~~~~~~~~~~~~ : A<>E<>R : : The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking : new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust : + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + : Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved : the absolute rejection of authority. -Thomas Huxley : + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + : Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed : + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + : In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material : is distributed without charge or profit to those who have : expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information : for non-profit research and educational purposes only. 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