In his inaugural address in 1949 Harry Truman said that “more than half the people in the world are living in conditions approaching misery. For the first time in history, humanity possesses the knowledge and skill to relieve the suffering of those people.” It has taken much longer than Truman hoped, but the world has lately been making extraordinary progress in lifting people out of extreme poverty. Between 1990 and 2010, their number fell by half as a share of the total population in developing countries, from 43% to 21%—a reduction of almost 1 billion people. Now the world has a serious chance to redeem Truman’s pledge to lift the least fortunate. Of the 7 billion people alive on the planet, 1.1 billion subsist below the internationally accepted extreme-poverty line of $1.25 a day... Nobody in the developed world comes remotely close to the poverty level that $1.25 a day represents. America’s poverty line is $63 a day for a family of four. In the richer parts of the emerging world $4 a day is the poverty barrier. But poverty’s scourge is fiercest below $1.25 (the average of the 15 poorest countries’ own poverty lines, measured in 2005 dollars and adjusted for differences in purchasing power): people below that level live lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short. They lack not just education, health care, proper clothing and shelter—which most people in most of the world take for granted—but even enough food for physical and mental health. Raising people above that level of wretchedness is not a sufficient ambition for a prosperous planet, but it is a necessary one.
- The Economist, June 1st 2013
Hundreds of thousands of Southern families are living on less than $2 in cash a day as a result of legislation President Bill Clinton signed in 1996, according to new research by Johns Hopkins University's Kathryn Edin and University of Michigan's Luke Shaefer... President Clinton's law required welfare recipients to participate in various work-related programs, such as vocational training, community service, and employment searches, in order to get financial help. States were free to determine the specific requirements, and they had broad authority over how the money dedicated to public assistance would be spent. The reforms had broad public support, but the new system had cracks, and some people fell through them. Those who couldn't work for whatever reason were ineligible for any kind of assistance. As a result, a certain kind of grave poverty has reappeared in the United States. Sanders said that the number of people living in extreme poverty has doubled under President Clinton's reforms. If anything, that was an understatement. Edin and Shaefer's research shows that the number of people living on $2 a day or less in cash has increased more than twofold, to 1.6 million households... Getting an accurate estimate of the cash available to households that have so little is difficult, but the federal Survey of Income and Program Participation suggests that their numbers have steadily increased. To some degree, expansions of other government assistance programs have mitigated the circumstances of families with little cash income. President Obama's health-care reform law, for instance, insured many people living in poverty or close to it through Medicaid. Congress has also made more people eligible to receive food stamps. Some families may be able to live in public housing. Nonetheless, broader analyses of severe poverty that account for in-kind assistance besides cash also show a worsening situation for the neediest.
- The Washington Post, February 27th, 2016
- The Economist, June 1st 2013
Hundreds of thousands of Southern families are living on less than $2 in cash a day as a result of legislation President Bill Clinton signed in 1996, according to new research by Johns Hopkins University's Kathryn Edin and University of Michigan's Luke Shaefer... President Clinton's law required welfare recipients to participate in various work-related programs, such as vocational training, community service, and employment searches, in order to get financial help. States were free to determine the specific requirements, and they had broad authority over how the money dedicated to public assistance would be spent. The reforms had broad public support, but the new system had cracks, and some people fell through them. Those who couldn't work for whatever reason were ineligible for any kind of assistance. As a result, a certain kind of grave poverty has reappeared in the United States. Sanders said that the number of people living in extreme poverty has doubled under President Clinton's reforms. If anything, that was an understatement. Edin and Shaefer's research shows that the number of people living on $2 a day or less in cash has increased more than twofold, to 1.6 million households... Getting an accurate estimate of the cash available to households that have so little is difficult, but the federal Survey of Income and Program Participation suggests that their numbers have steadily increased. To some degree, expansions of other government assistance programs have mitigated the circumstances of families with little cash income. President Obama's health-care reform law, for instance, insured many people living in poverty or close to it through Medicaid. Congress has also made more people eligible to receive food stamps. Some families may be able to live in public housing. Nonetheless, broader analyses of severe poverty that account for in-kind assistance besides cash also show a worsening situation for the neediest.
- The Washington Post, February 27th, 2016