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(CNSNews.com) � The federal government is not making much headway reducing poverty despite spending hundreds of billions of dollars, according to a study by the libertarian Cato Institute.
Despite an unprecedented increase in federal anti-poverty spending, the national poverty rate has not declined, the study finds.
"[S]ince President Obama took office [in January 2009], federal welfare spending has increased by 41 percent, more than $193 billion per year," the study says.
Federal welfare spending in fiscal year 2011 totaled $668 billion, spread out over 126 programs, while the poverty rate that remains high at 15.1 percent, roughly where it was in 1965, when President Johnson declared a federal War on Poverty.
In 1966, the first year after Johnson declared war on poverty, the national poverty rate was 14.7 percent, according to Census Bureau figures. Over time, the poverty rate has fluctuated in a narrow range between 11 and 15 percent, only falling into the 11 percent range for a few years in the late 1970�s.
The federal poverty rate is the percentage of the population below the federal poverty threshold, which varies based on family size.
While the study concedes that some of the increased spending under Obama is a result of the recession and the counter-cyclical nature of anti-poverty programs, it also finds that some of the increase is deliberate, with the government having expanded eligibility for welfare programs.
In fiscal year 2008, anti-poverty spending was $475 billion. In fiscal year 2009, when Obama took office, it had risen to $590 billion.
"But the dramat�ically larger increase also suggests that part of the program�s growth is due to conscious policy choices by this administration to ease eligibility rules and expand caseloads," the Cato report says. "For example, income limits for eligibility have risen twice as fast as inflation since 2007 and are now roughly 10 percent higher than they were when Obama took office."
In fact, the study points out that according to the administration�s own projections, federal welfare spending is unlikely to decline even after the economy recovers � further evidence that not all of the increase in spending is recession-related.
"All this spending has not bought an ap�preciable reduction in poverty," the study says. "[T]he poverty rate has remained relatively constant since 1965, despite rising welfare spending."
The study counts as a welfare program any federal program that is means-tested and provides some kind of cash or in-kind benefit. Means-tested programs are federal programs that only make benefits available to people at or below a certain income level. In-kind benefits are things like healthcare, housing, or other non-cash benefits that are given in lieu of money.
Included in this expanded definition of welfare spending are traditional welfare programs such as food stamps and cash welfare benefits, as well as in-kind, means tested programs like Medicaid, energy assistance grants for low-income people, and the refundable portions of the Earned Income Tax Credit.
The study faults the way poverty programs are designed, saying that the increase in spending and largely unchanged poverty rate showed that the issue is not a matter of money, but a matter of what the programs aim to achieve.
"The vast majority of current programs are focused on making poverty more comfortable � giv�ing poor people more food, better shelter, health care, and so forth � rather than giving people the tools that will help them escape poverty."
Instead, the study recommends refocusing anti-poverty efforts on keeping people in school, discouraging out-of-wedlock births, and encouraging people to get a job � even if that job is a low-wage one.
"It would make sense therefore to shift our anti-poverty efforts from government programs that simply provide money or goods and services to those who are living in poverty to efforts to create the condi�tions and incentives that will make it eas�ier for people to escape poverty.

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.....why do you suppose that happened?

You see, this is why people despise neocons and think you are stupid and dishonest.

The article states that: "[S]ince President Obama took office [in January 2009], federal welfare spending has increased by 41 percent, more than $193 billion per year," the study says. Federal welfare spending in fiscal year 2011 totaled $668 billion.

Go further down the article and it states: "In fiscal year 2008, anti-poverty spending was $475 billion. In fiscal year 2009, when Obama took office, it had risen to $590 billion."

Now, the funding levels for the FY 2009 budget were set by President Bush, although the budget was eventually signed by President Obama shortly after he took office. So the 2009 spending levels were already set by President Bush and they totaled $590 billion. Now, technically, it's true that this was the amount when Obama took office, but that amount was requested by President Bush and Obama respected his predecessor by approving his budget figures.

Now these programs for FY 2011 cost $668 billion, an increase of $78 billion over the $590 billion of the final year of President Bush's budget figure. This is how much Obama increased funding, not the $193 billion that the article, through clever and misleading logic, would lead you to believe. / end quote

keeping in mind, of course, that Obama took over when job losses were 600,000 a month, the world economy was in the worst shape since the Great Depression, etc.

But hey, if you think more deregulation and tax cuts for millionaires is the answer, vote Republican

Many poor people we know perform under the table cash/barter services and/or receive help from relatives, friends etc which is of course can't be calculated.

On the other side of the coin, we know many working people that aren't considered poor by census standards due to cash incomes, yet they're broke after paying for rent, utilities, food, car payments, insurance, maintenance, repairs, gas, tolls, parking, daycare, cable, internet, phone and numerous necessities.

Inflation has really hit low income and part time workers like a sledgehammer.

We know many people that can't break the cycle of poverty simply because they can't afford the costs of reliable vehicle necessary to find/keep a job or two

They just can't afford payments, high interest rates, maintenance, repairs, insurance, gas, tickets, tools, towing, impound fees, parking etc.

When I offered to give used car to a cousin's daughter recently, she still couldn't afford the cost of registration, plates, insurance, inspection etc. The lowest insurance quote she received was just under $2,000 per year for liability insurance.

Job seekers without a reliable vehicles in their region are pretty much screwed...

= me

My car is dying and I can't even afford a different one. You'll note, I didn't say a new one. Just a better car. I've been dragging my feet, hoping to make it to next year, but it's looking bleak. This economy has to change!!!! Or I can win the lottery.

Might have something to do with it.

While its fun to watch the 'Conservatives' pretend that nothing bad happened during the Bush administration and everything is all Obama's fault, a lot of people haven't forgotten.

I have some tenants that recently bought a used car from a buy here-pay her car dealer after their existing car failed and inspection due to a rotted frame section.

The transmission on the used car they bought (for 3X market value) died shortly after their 30 day warranty.

I ended up plating/welding the frame of the original vehicle, then getting it inspected for them so they could keep their jobs and continue paying rent.

Yet another thing that keeps income/credit challenged workers down is the money and interest rates they pay for used/new vehicles.

We have a few relatives either paying 2/3X`the market value of the vehicles they're financing, paying insanely high interest rates, or both.

Many used car dealers sell/repossess the same vehicle numerous times when it breaks down and/or the buyers can no longer afford payments.

"From The NY Daily News January 19 2009.

New York is No. 1 again - this time, unfortunately, in job losses.

The city is projected to shed more jobs than any other metro area in the country this year, with 181,000 people likely find themselves without a paycheck.

The grim forecast can be traced to turmoil in the finance industry, which will account for more than 50,000 of the jobs lost, according to IHS Global Insight, which researched employment trends nationwide for the U.S. Conference of Mayors."

GEEE willikers I don't think they all had prudent reserves to hold them for 3 or 4 months emergency. Unemployment certainly wasn't going to cover $2000 & $3000 a month rents.
Well you'll just have to move to a cheaper apartment so my sister told my Merrill Lynch nephews. Well NYC landlords want every financial document since kindergarten to get an apartment so they moved back home temporarily 2 years and 25% & 30% salary cuts. Ohhhh those hefty student loans. Embarrassing being 32 & having your father sign as a guarantor on your lease just to get you back out of the house again.With 40 years worth of connections he got them both jobs again.
Without the personal stories it's all just numbers and gee there 3 more sofas & mattresses on the street.

What about all those trillions spent on free trade, which is supposed to be the Capitalist solution to everything?

Which is why we need more, not less public transportation. Which is why we need more commuter trains, not fewer, as they have in Europe. Which is why Amtrak should have been expanded. Where I lived before in VA they encouraged people to carpool because the traffic was so horrific. People just would not do it. Americans love their own little protected space and their independence too much.

Rob, I certainly feel your pain on the vehicle. We had bought our last car under circumstances that no longer exist now so we sold it for a 1992 and now DH is learning how to do repairs that he had never considered before. Fortunately, it gets good mileage.

Nobody uses mass transit here. Pass a bus any time or day of the week and it's nearly empty.

Human greed has a way of messing things up, but capitalism is still the best economic system around.

BTW, have you heard the new foodstamps ad? I can't wait to hit retirement so I can enroll in the program! :-P

Just getting to and from the bus stops is an issue for many, so people without vehicles, or access to vehicles generally take taxis.

We constantly see nearly empty transit buses in many regions.

Since many riders are seniors, disabled residents and public assistance recipients, poor and low income residents, ridership is modest early in the check and foodstamp cycle, then drops of sharply mid month.

As non working, poor, low income and part time workers without transportation have less and less money to spend, transit and taxi usage frequency has dropped.

One of my tenants is a part-time transit and taxi driver in a poor local urban area. His hours have been dropping as many of the customers are food stamp recipients that now push carts of groceries throughout the cities rather than take the transit or taxis.

He also has a side business collecting shopping carts and returning them to the stores.

Uh oh. Folks who note Democrat failures here find themselves on the receiving end of very personal attacks. Are ya ready? :)

The piece ignores the fact that we have decades of stagnant wages coming home to roost with the jobs shipped out. It says get a job...any job...well guess what if you work at Walmart - the world's largest employer - you are in poverty still. Worldwide recession, unpaid for wars and tax cuts and decades of greed have brought us here today.

I can say I am thankful for the extended unemployment benefits for my family but this has ended. The article paints a picture of being too comfortable in poverty. That says so much.

I would love to see a contrast on how muuch we spend on corporate welfare...subsidies and tax incentives etc and also "defense/war" to give us a better perspective. The decline of the middle class and unions is well documented as more people become poor after the housing collapse brought to us by Wall Street. Record profits and record suffering.

I am proud to live in a country that has safety nets for the weekest among us. But this we see changing before our eyes as we move towards being a country of haves and have nots with the haves blaming the have nots. I read the entire study and they do say it they offer no alternative to managing poverty in America....why? Because the purpose of this piece is not to work on issues and problem solving, but only to perpetuation the right wing meme that Obama is the "food stamp president".

What would your solution to poverty in America be or Romenys?

JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon testified on Capitol Hill today for the second time in two weeks, appearing before the House Financial Services Committee to discuss the trading debacle that has cost his bank billions of dollars. Before the hearing, Bloomberg News pointed to a new study showing that JP Morgan Chase receives a $14 billion annual subsidy from the U.S. government. This subsidy is due to JP Morgan's reputation as a too-big-to-fail bank, which lets it borrow money at lower rates than other, less systemically risky banks:

JPMorgan receives a government subsidy worth about $14 billion a year, according to research published by the International Monetary Fund and our own analysis of bank balance sheets. The money helps the bank pay big salaries and bonuses. [...]

It won't be long before we have to pay "per flush"...not to mention they wanted to bring in fracking waste from other parts of the state to process here. One drop of that in our bays and you can kiss our safe water and ecosystem goodbye. But hey! They need to make a buck, too!

We bounce between homes in Saratoga, Lake George and The Great Sacandaga region, but the transit runs I'm talking about are in Fulton and Montgomery Counties.

This is where people need transit the most as they have the 1st and 3rd highest unemployment rate in Upstate New York, plus some of the highest poverty rates in the state.

It's very common for residents in these regions to have no parking, no vehicle, no access to a vehicle, no driver's license and no savings/assets/credit, so walking, taxis and transit are their only options.

Many roads and drivers in the area aren't bike friendly, nor is its safe to walk, or bike through many regions.

We have excellent bus sevice here - can't think of any area not served or where one can't catch a bus within a block's walk. Most of the busses have the bike racks, too, so one can ride out to the bike trails, parks, etc.

You need a clean driver's license and reliable personal transportation to work many of these jobs traveling between clients' homes.

You can't even get a local pizza delivery job without a reliable vehicle.

More and more employers state that workers "Must Have Reliable Personal Transportation" as well.

Forget most underground economy jobs and self employment opportunities if you don't have a vehicle.

Try carrying a lawnmower, gas and other tools on the transit.

Doesn't seem to be too busy though.

No, that's a much too simple approach.

So two other points. The States as a whole have been cutting their share of welfare programs due to budget short falls-is the Federal government trying to make up some of the difference?

We know from previous posts that government expenditure always grows at a faster rate under Republican governments-this is a irrefutable fact inspite of beliefs to the contrary. It is surely a matter of what the money is being spent on. With 8 years of Repbulican rule behind this increase perhaps it was time? Government spending will always increase with an increasing population-we have an increasing population and lately we have had an increasingly poor population due to the global economic melt down..so....logic here...

I found Mark James comments to be very useful in demonstrating some of the difficulties that people encounter when trying to escape poverty.

Since the 1960's Republicans have said that because we still have poverty at around the same levels, then that somehow proves that spending money to help the poor is a big waste. This is an absurd argument that I do not even want to waste time addressing. Of course we need to provide food, education, and maintain some degree of humanity toward the poor, the sick, and the unfortunate. Reducing the relatively small amount that we spend on social programs is really a provocative suggestion, especially when calling for more tax breaks for the wealthy out of the other side of one's mouth.

While continuing to provide a safety net, we need to address a lot of structural issues that contribute to a permanent underclass, lack of equal educational opportunities for the poor, and of course, the continued discrimination and segregation that we have in many parts of this country that contributes mightily to the problems.

Back in the late 1960's the all white school district that I lived in fought school busing like it was a wildfire. Now that inner city public schools have been allowed to crumble after the white flight our of the city, they are dismantling public education, the last and best hope for many young people in those neighborhoods to get an education.

Republicans really need to get off the welfare queen nonsense and stop the race baiting garbage against Obama.

"Trevelyan also claimed that aiding the Irish brought "the risk of paralyzing all private enterprise." Thus he ruled out providing any more government food, despite early reports the potato blight had already been spotted amid the next harvest in the west of Ireland. Trevelyan believed Peel's policy of providing cheap Indian corn meal to the Irish had been a mistake because it undercut market prices and had discouraged private food dealers from importing the needed food. This year, the British government would do nothing. The food depots would be closed on schedule and the Irish fed via the free market, reducing their dependence on the government while at the same time maintaining the rights of private enterprise.'

The cheap corn meal also caused incredible ammounts of suffering as it was nearly indigestible.

The ships that brought it needed no ballast for their return voyage they were loaded with people being shipped to Canada & the US. The Notorious coffin ships.
History has been here before with the free racketeering nonsense.
It was an early version of Arbeit Mach Frei on a national level. If you could get a public works job you might eat.

Disraeli described it thus
" "a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church, and in addition the weakest executive in the world."
there had been hundreds of studies and at lest 60 commissions prior to the Famine that predicted the worst.
Gee this is reminiscent of (can't put my finger on it)

I think you are a closet Republican.

Thanks patriciae and labrea for your enlightening posts. History repeating itself?