flipht , 9 months ago

Since so much of our social safety net is run by states, and since so much is based on poverty numbers, it's interesting to learn how that poverty threshold was originally calculated

Spoiler alert, it was just made up by some bureaucrat's personal beliefs about "expected costs" for a "normal family."

https://www.census.gov/topics/income-poverty/poverty/about/history-of-the-poverty-measure.html#:~:text=The%20current%20official%20poverty%20measure,account%20for%20other%20family%20expenses.

It hasn't been adjusted for the insanity of today's expenses, not even counting inflation. In the 60s, they didn't have the same medical, educational, or transportation costs we do, let alone other stuff like rent and daycare.

It's literally a meaningless figure that is kept artificially low to limit who is eligible for assistance.