In my last post, I challenged a common assumption about equality and justice—that inequality per se is inherently unjust, and therefore that the gap between rich and poor is as well. In what follows I contest another popular notion touted by redistributionists—that unequal wealth as such causes hardship for the poor. As I argue in my recent National Affairs article, [T]he implicit assumption behind the case for the injustice of income inequality is that the wealthy are the reason why the poor are poor, or at least why they cannot …
If there’s one thing Saturday Night Live is good at in an election year, it’s lampooning politicians—whether it’s been Chevy Chase as Gerald Ford, Darrell Hammond as Bill Clinton, or Dan Akroyd as Bob Dole. But last weekend, SNL offered up an unusually insightful bit of non-presidential social commentary—this time taking a swipe at America’s coddled, self-esteem-driven, success-less culture. You’d be better off watching the clip from the show (it’s much funnier than this summary), but in the interest of keeping it simple, a skit last week featured two talk …
The greatest tribute to the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., is not to name a street in his honor or celebrate a national holiday. It is to recognize and support those who are working to carry out his vision, those who empower those facing the greatest obstacles through personal relationships that restore the fabric of civil society—without the need for federal government intervention. As former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp once said, “We need an anti-poverty agenda based on democratic capitalism, not socialism and on private ownership, …
Last week, the Associated Press reported that, based on the Census Bureau’s new poverty measure, half of America is now poor or low-income. Forget about Occupy Wall Street’s ballyhooed 99 percent of Americans who aren’t “rich.” Now we’re supposed to believe 50 percent of us are poor or close to it. Of course, that all depends how you define “poverty” or “near poverty.” And by the definition of this new measure, quietly ushered in by the Obama Administration, “low-income” in some areas of the country can now mean up to …
On October 25, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published an analysis of changes in the distribution of household income between 1979 and 2007. CBO argues that the 62 percent gain in average household income over this 28-year period mostly went to households in the top 20 percent of the income distribution, where average income grew by 65 percent. Average household income in the top 1 percent of the distribution grew by 275 percent after taxes. Those households in the bottom 20 percent of all households saw income gains of 18 …
Children in Indiana born to single parents are more than six times more likely to live in poverty than children born to married parents. In fact, nearly three-quarters of all poor families in the state are headed by single parents. According to a new Heritage report, the breakdown of marriage in Indiana is a major cause of the state’s poverty. Unfortunately, as the data reveal, the rate of unwed births in the Hoosier State has grown dramatically over the last five decades, from just over 5 percent in 1960 to …
The Census Bureau’s new poverty measure is another tool in President Obama’s endless quest to “spread the wealth.” Although the media portray it as a more accurate measurement of poverty, in reality it deliberately severs all connection between “poverty” and actual deprivation. The new measure places income thresholds for poverty on a built-in escalator that rises automatically in direct proportion to any improvement in the living standards of the average American. So even if the real income of every single American were to double, the new measure would show no …
There’s a new kid on the block. Muppet Lily joined Elmo and Big Bird on the cast of Sesame Street last month. Despite Lily’s bright pink face looking cheery and healthy in her debut episode, the audience found out that Lily deals with hunger and food insecurity. Sesame Street’s newest primetime special, “Growing Hope Against Hunger,” introduced Lily in order to raise awareness of widespread hunger throughout the United States. Viewers were informed that over 50 million Americans don’t have the food they need much of the time. Seventeen million …
In September, the Census Bureau reported that 46.2 million Americans are living in poverty, a steep increase from the previous year’s report of 43.6 million. However, in a New York Times piece yesterday, journalist Jason DeParle and colleagues assert that “most poverty experts” would call the Census Bureau’s measure “flawed.” “Concocted on the fly a half-century ago, the official poverty measure ignores ever more of what is happening to the poor person’s wallet—good and bad,” noted the authors. Heritage senior research fellow Robert Rector similarly points out that the Census …
A recent New York Times online report suggested that Americans should quit buying products made by poor people—because when people in the United States buy coffee, sugar, t-shirts, or tomatoes, they are guilty of exploiting impoverished workers. The story quoted the executive director of a group called Art Works Projects: “Most people don’t look at their shirt and realize if they got a good deal on it, someone down the line has been seriously abused.” She later added, “If you purchased something, you’re part of the problem, but you’re immediately …
