----- Original Message ----- From: "John D. Giorgis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Brin-L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2002 10:21 AM Subject: Re: Presidents RE: Corruption in a Democracy
> At 10:59 PM 1/18/02 -0600 Dan Minette wrote: > >Since you asked, here's the trend since 1959...that's as far back as I could > >get numbers: > > Despite spending billions upon billions of dollars in other words, those > numbers are incredibly depressing since 1968. > > JDG I was a bit puzzled, and I went back and recalled that I didn't give the total poverty rate. Rather, I gave the rate for households with children under 18. Let's look at the total rate: 2000 7.7 1999 8.3 1998 9 1997 9.2 1996 9.8 1995 9.5 1994 10.5 1993 11.1 1992 10.8 1991 10.3 1990 9.6 1989 9.1 1988 9.4 1987 9.6 1986 9.7 1985 10.1 1984 10.3 1983 11.1 1982 10.8 1981 9.7 1980 9.1 1979 8.2 1978 8.4 1977 8.6 1976 8.8 1975 9 1974 8.4 1973 8.4 1972 8.9 1971 9.7 1970 9.7 1969 9.5 1968 10 One notes that poverty is now at historical lows. In a real sense, the government policies of the '70s dropped it slowly, but it increased to 10% above the 1968 level in '93. I think that the numbers I gave on the distribution of income have a lot to do with it. Basically, the bottom rungs of the ladder stayed fixed during the 80s, while the top rung rose. Lets look at the average income of the bottom 40%. This clearly includes not just the unemployed, but a lot of working people too. This income gained 6% from 70 to 80, and the same from 80 to 90. But, in both cases, the following recession wiped out half of the gain. So, the overall gain from 70 to 93 was only 7%. But, if you look at the top 5%, a very interesting thing occurred. The top 5% gained 13% from '70 to '80. It then gained another 4.5% from '80 to '83. While the bottom 40% lost half of their gains, the top 5% kept on gaining income at the same rate. Indeed, the overall gain for the top 5% was 54% from 80 to 93. (For completeness, the income of the middle 20% rose 4%, the income of the 4th quintile rose 10% and the income of the top quintile rose 30% during that time.) Given all this, how in the world would you expect poverty to decease over that period? If you believe that the market naturally provides good rungs for the poor to climb onto, you would expect the lot of those who are not poor, but are in the bottom 40% of income to rise. Heck, only the top 40% showed any noticeable gain. Thankfully, the 90s were not like that. The income of the bottom 40% rose about 16%. And, one sees poverty declining. We'll see what these years bring. My fear is that the bottom 40% will lose ground, while the top 5% keep on improving. Maybe not, since the fiascos of .coms and Enron may hit the top earners more than the bottom. But, we'll see. Finally, you should know the group targeted for poverty elimination by most government spending: the elderly. The government has been very effective in dramatically decreasing poverty in the elderly. Poverty for families with children is more complicated, and I'll agree that the government alone can't do it. But, deciding that cutting government support is the solution doesn't work either. It ignores the fact that the boom of the '90s was responsible for the decrease in poverty. Dan M. Dan M.
