Proving Ronald Reagan Wrong

Every Group Benefited


Unprecedented Reductions in Poverty

Ronald Reagan famously quipped, "We fought a war on poverty, and poverty won."

It wasn't true then, the great society programs reduced poverty by more than 40%, and it's not true now.

Case in point, it appears that aid programs associated with pandemic assistance have triggered a historical drop in poverty.

This won't satisfy the "Cruelty is the Point" crowd, but it should satisfy the rest of us.

Because of dire nature the of the emergency, these programs largely eschewed the means testing and bureaucratic hoops common to the social safety net in the US, which was good for those who needed it, even though it would be an anathema to faux liberals who make much of the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment):

The huge increase in government aid prompted by the coronavirus pandemic will cut poverty nearly in half this year from prepandemic levels and push the share of Americans in poverty to the lowest level on record, according to the most comprehensive analysis yet of a vast but temporary expansion of the safety net.

The number of poor Americans is expected to fall by nearly 20 million from 2018 levels, a decline of almost 45 percent. The country has never cut poverty so much in such a short period of time, and the development is especially notable since it defies economic headwinds — the economy has nearly seven million fewer jobs than it did before the pandemic.

The extraordinary reduction in poverty has come at extraordinary cost, with annual spending on major programs projected to rise fourfold to more than $1 trillion. Yet without further expensive new measures, millions of families may find the escape from poverty brief. The three programs that cut poverty most — stimulus checks, increased food stamps and expanded unemployment insurance — have ended or are scheduled to soon revert to their prepandemic size.

While poverty has fallen most among children, its retreat is remarkably broad: It has dropped among Americans who are white, Black, Latino and Asian, and among Americans of every age group and residents of every state.

 ………

The finding — that poverty plunged amid hard times at huge fiscal costs — comes at a moment of sharp debate about the future of the safety net.

The Biden administration has started making monthly payments to most families with children through an expansion of the child tax credit. Democrats want to make the yearlong effort permanent, which would reduce child poverty on a continuing basis by giving their families an income guarantee.

Progressives said the new numbers vindicated their contention that poverty levels reflected political choices and government programs could reduce economic need.

The most heavily taxed people in the United States are the poor who receive benefits.

Frequently, when they find a work, the resulting reduction in benefits is 100%, and not-infrequently, they exceed 100%.

Just give them the money, and if you have concerns about benefits, tax the rich.