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35–776 2007

ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY 

AND POVERTY IN AMERICA 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

INCOME SECURITY AND FAMILY SUPPORT 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

FEBRUARY 13, 2007 

Serial No. 110–11 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Ways and Means 

( 

ii 

COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS 

CHARLES B. RANGEL, New York, Chairman 

FORTNEY PETE STARK, California 

SANDER M. LEVIN, Michigan 

JIM MCDERMOTT, Washington 

JOHN LEWIS, Georgia 

RICHARD E. NEAL, Massachusetts 

MICHAEL R. MCNULTY, New York 

JOHN S. TANNER, Tennessee 

XAVIER BECERRA, California 

LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas 

EARL POMEROY, North Dakota 

STEPHANIE TUBBS JONES, Ohio 

MIKE THOMPSON, California 

JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut 

RAHM EMANUEL, Illinois 

EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon 

RON KIND, Wisconsin 

BILL PASCRELL JR., New Jersey 

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland 

KENDRICK MEEK, Florida 

ALLYSON Y. SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania 

ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama 

JIM MCCRERY, Louisiana 

WALLY HERGER, California 

DAVE CAMP, Michigan 

JIM RAMSTAD, Minnesota 

SAM JOHNSON, Texas 

PHIL ENGLISH, Pennsylvania 

JERRY WELLER, Illinois 

KENNY C. HULSHOF, Missouri 

RON LEWIS, Kentucky 

KEVIN BRADY, Texas 

THOMAS M. REYNOLDS, New York 

PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin 

ERIC CANTOR, Virginia 

JOHN LINDER, Georgia 

DEVIN NUNES, California 

PAT TIBERI, Ohio 

JON PORTER, Nevada 

JANICE MAYS, Chief Counsel and Staff Director 

BRETT LOPER, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INCOME SECURITY AND FAMILY SUPPORT 

JIM MCDERMOTT, Washington, Chairman 

FORTNEY PETE STARK, California 

ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama 

JOHN LEWIS, Georgia 

MICHAEL R. MCNULTY, New York 

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada 

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland 

KENDRICK MEEK, Florida 

JERRY WELLER, Illinois 

WALLY HERGER, California 

DAVE CAMP, Michigan 

JON PORTER, Nevada 

PHIL ENGLISH, Pennsylvania 

Pursuant to clause 2(e)(4) of Rule XI of the Rules of the House, public hearing records 

of the Committee on Ways and Means are also published in electronic form. The printed 

hearing record remains the official version. Because electronic submissions are used to 

prepare both printed and electronic versions of the hearing record, the process of converting 

between various electronic formats may introduce unintentional errors or omissions. Such occurrences are inherent in the current publication process and should diminish as the process 

is further refined. 

iii 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Advisory of February 6, 2007, announcing the hearing ....................................... 2 

WITNESSES 

Anita Crawley, Nashville, Tennessee ..................................................................... 44 

Marilyn Bezear, New York, New York .................................................................. 46 

Douglas Noble, Gaithersburg, Maryland ............................................................... 49 

Tavon Hawkins and Nicole Dodd, Baltimore, Maryland ...................................... 51 

Timothy M. Smeeding, Ph.D., Director of the Center for Policy Research, 

Syracuse University ............................................................................................. 69 

Gary Burtless, Ph.D., John C. and Nancy D. Whitehead Chair in Economic 

Studies, The Brookings Institution, speaking in the absence of Timothy 

M. Smeeding ......................................................................................................... 68 

Alan Berube, Fellow, Metropolitan Policy Program, The Brookings Institution 80 

Angela Glover Blackwell, Esq., Founder and C.E.O., PolicyLink ........................ 88 

Robert Rector, Senior Policy Analyst, The Heritage Foundation ........................ 93 

Jared Bernstein, Ph.D., Director of the Living Standards Program, Economic 

Policy Institute ..................................................................................................... 114 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

Americans For Fair Taxation, Conyers, GA, statement ....................................... 129 

Child Welfare League of America, statement ........................................................ 129 

Holland, Lary Wayne, statement ........................................................................... 135 

(1) 

ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY 

AND POVERTY IN AMERICA 

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2007 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INCOME SECURITY AND FAMILY SUPPORT, 

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:20 a.m., in 

room B–318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jim McDermott 

(Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding. 

[The advisory announcing the hearing follows:] 

2 

ADVISORY 

FROM THE COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

INCOME SECURITY AND FAMILY SUPPORT 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: (202) 225–1025 

February 06, 2007 

ISFS–1 

McDermott Announces Hearing on 

Economic Opportunity and Poverty in America 

Congressman Jim McDermott (D–WA), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Income 

Security and Family Support of the Committee on Ways and Means, today announced that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing on economic opportunity and 

poverty in America. The hearing will take place on Tuesday, February 13, 

2007, in room B–318 Rayburn House Office Building, immediately after a 

brief Subcommittee organizational meeting beginning at 10:00 a.m. 

In view of the limited time available to hear witnesses, oral testimony at this 

hearing will be from invited witnesses only. Witnesses will include experts on issues 

related to international comparisons of poverty, the geographical distribution of poor 

individuals, income mobility, the relevance of Hurricane Katrina, and the official 

definition of poverty. However, any individual or organization not scheduled for an 

oral appearance may submit a written statement for consideration by the Committee and for inclusion in the printed record of the hearing. 

BACKGROUND: 

According to the most recent statistics, there were 37 million Americans living in 

poverty in 2005, including nearly 13 million children. After prior years of decline, 

the number and percentage of Americans in poverty began to climb after the year 

2000, resulting in an additional 5.4 million Americans living below the poverty line. 

Research indicates that poverty, measured both on a relative and absolute basis, 

is more common in the United States than in many other relatively prosperous nations. Additional studies suggest that income mobility for children born into poverty 

in the U.S. may be limited, and that an increasing percentage of poor children have 

working parents. While still a particular problem in inner-city and rural areas, poor 

Americans have joined the general migration to the suburbs, with the suburban 

poor now out-numbering their counterparts in the cities. Against this backdrop, 

there continues to be a debate about how to best define and quantify poverty. 

In announcing the hearing, Chairman McDermott stated, ‘‘We need to work to ensure the American dream can become a reality. Today, too many of our fellow citizens see that dream slipping away. Those in poverty feel trapped and the countless 

millions living paycheck to paycheck feel they could slip into poverty at any time. 

I hope this hearing and others to follow will illustrate the need for change.’’ 

FOCUS OF THE HEARING: 

The hearing will focus on the extent and nature of economic opportunity and poverty in America. 

DETAILS FOR SUBMISSION OF WRITTEN COMMENTS: 

Please Note: Any person(s) and/or organization(s) wishing to submit for the hearing record must follow the appropriate link on the hearing page of the Committee 

3 

website and complete the informational forms. From the Committee homepage, 

http://waysandmeans.house.gov, select ‘‘110th Congress’’ from the menu entitled, 

‘‘Hearing Archives’’ (http://waysandmeans.house.gov/Hearings.asp?congress=18). Select the hearing for which you would like to submit, and click on the link entitled, 

‘‘Click here to provide a submission for the record.’’ Once you have followed the online instructions, completing all informational forms and clicking ‘‘submit’’ on the 

final page, an email will be sent to the address which you supply confirming your 

interest in providing a submission for the record. You MUST REPLY to the email 

and ATTACH your submission as a Word or WordPerfect document, in compliance 

with the formatting requirements listed below, by close of business February 27, 

2007. Finally, please note that due to the change in House mail policy, the U.S. 

Capitol Police will refuse sealed-package deliveries to all House Office Buildings. 

For questions, or if you encounter technical problems, please call (202) 225–1721. 

FORMATTING REQUIREMENTS: 

The Committee relies on electronic submissions for printing the official hearing record. As always, submissions will be included in the record according to the discretion of the Committee. 

The Committee will not alter the content of your submission, but we reserve the right to format 

it according to our guidelines. Any submission provided to the Committee by a witness, any supplementary materials submitted for the printed record, and any written comments in response 

to a request for written comments must conform to the guidelines listed below. Any submission 

or supplementary item not in compliance with these guidelines will not be printed, but will be 

maintained in the Committee files for review and use by the Committee. 

1. All submissions and supplementary materials must be provided in Word or WordPerfect 

format and MUST NOT exceed a total of 10 pages, including attachments. Witnesses and submitters are advised that the Committee relies on electronic submissions for printing the official 

hearing record. 

2. Copies of whole documents submitted as exhibit material will not be accepted for printing. 

Instead, exhibit material should be referenced and quoted or paraphrased. All exhibit material 

not meeting these specifications will be maintained in the Committee files for review and use 

by the Committee. 

3. All submissions must include a list of all clients, persons, and/or organizations on whose 

behalf the witness appears. A supplemental sheet must accompany each submission listing the 

name, company, address, telephone and fax numbers of each witness. 

Note: All Committee advisories and news releases are available on the World 

Wide Web at http://waysandmeans.house.gov. 

The Committee seeks to make its facilities accessible to persons with disabilities. 

If you are in need of special accommodations, please call 202–225–1721 or 202–226– 

3411 TTD/TTY in advance of the event (four business days notice is requested). 

Questions with regard to special accommodation needs in general (including availability of Committee materials in alternative formats) may be directed to the Committee as noted above. 

f 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. We will now open the regular meeting 

of—this is really our first hearing and we are quite excited about 

it because about a year and a half ago, Katrina exposed the brutal 

reality of poverty in this country I think in a way, that most mentioned never really had an opportunity to see it on television. They 

saw a side of our country which was quite surprising. Real people 

too poor to find a way to avoid the path of the storm and too forgotten to receive any immediate help. Even President Bush acknowledged America’s shock and anguish at seeing so many with so little 

when he went to New Orleans, when he said we have a duty to 

confront this poverty with bold action. 

Now, unfortunately, we haven’t seen that kind of bold action, and 

for that matter, in many respects, any action in New Orleans. To 

really to shake us from that lethargy, I feel like we needed this 

special hearing in Congress, and with the American people about 

4 

the causes, the impacts and the potential solutions for poverty. If 

we can develop some level of common understanding about these 

issues, perhaps we can unite Republicans and Democrats under a 

common cause to actually act. 

In today’s hearings, as well as future hearings, they will hopefully play a role in that process. I am certainly not expecting any 

kind of immediate consensus on potential remedies on or even on 

all of poverty’s causes, but I do think we can confront some of the 

basic facts here, which we will hear a few. 

Our Nation has one of the highest poverty rates among all relatively prosperous nations. We will hear testimony today highlighting that fact as well as the fact that we spend a smaller percentage of our National wealth addressing poverty than most undeveloped nations. 

Secondly, poverty is more prevalent in some places than others, 

but it exists throughout America. It is not located in a few pockets 

here and there. Poverty remains a significant problem, so painfully 

demonstrated in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, but we actually 

have more poor Americans living in the suburbs than we do in the 

cities. 

Thirdly, most poor children in our Nation have working parents. 

Work might be a requisite to have a chance to escape poverty, but 

it does not guarantee it. There are plenty of people work and kids 

living in families where both parents work and still living in poverty. 

Finally, to those who say poverty is simply a result of bad choices 

by individuals, I want to ask them to remember three things: Most 

of us have made mistakes in our life, but we have gotten a second 

chance and often a third or fourth chance. The second chances are 

a lot harder to come by when you are living in poverty. Moreover, 

most people fall into poverty not because of bad choices, but because of bad luck, the circumstances of life over which they have 

really no control: Job loss, divorce, family illness, can all lead to a 

family’s downward spiral into poverty. 

Finally, the third thing I want you to remember is contrary to 

our best hope, there is not equal opportunity in this country. If you 

don’t have access to a decent school or a safe neighborhood or a 

good job, your path to economic self-certainty is much, much harder. Personal responsibility is important but so too is society’s obligation to help those with the least. 

I look forward to having a discussion with these and other issues 

with the hope that greater understanding may bring us closer to 

working toward a solution. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. I would now like to yield to Mr. Weller 

for any comments that he may have. Mr. Weller. 

Mr. WELLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for convening this meeting. I certainly want to welcome our witnesses before us today and appreciate the time they are taking to be with 

us. 

Today’s hearing covers a broad range of issues, including not 

only issues relating to poverty, but also economic opportunity in 

this country. We have an equally broad set of experts to discuss 

these topics, including several who will provide accounts of their 

5 

continued struggles to lift their own families out of poverty, and I 

look forward to hearing that testimony. 

Even as we explore how to reduce poverty and promote economic 

opportunity, it is important to note the progress that has been 

made in reducing poverty through welfare reform and other prowork policies. Pro-work welfare reforms reduced poverty since 

1996. In the past decade, the overall poverty rate has fallen by 7 

percent. Child poverty rates have dropped by 13 percent and today 

over 1.4 million fewer children live in poverty. Poverty declined 

sharply among African Americans Hispanics and families headed 

by single mothers. Despite these gains, our ability to make long 

run progress remains in question, because more children are born 

each year into the type of households most likely to be in poverty, 

that is, households headed by single parents. 

Today, 37 percent of all children are born to unmarried parents, 

which is both an all time high, and a number that will probably 

continue to rise. A recent Congressional research study report on 

children in poverty, which I would request we enter into the record 

for this hearing, shows children in such households at five times 

the poverty rate as children living with married parents. So, we 

have our work cut out for us. 

We should also devote some time to how poverty is measured and 

how current programs are effective. We know most government 

programs are not counted today when measuring poverty. A reasonable person might wonder why. Some studies suggest if we had 

the full picture of the income and benefits families receive, the real 

poverty rate will drop to a low as of 5 percent instead of today’s 

official poverty rate of nearly 13 percent. 

Fortunately, we know what works and what doesn’t to reduce 

poverty. Promoting full-time work and healthy marriage are the 

strongest weapons in our arsenal against poverty. Both of which 

are more effective than doubling welfare benefits. Achieving that 

will require engaging and challenging young adults, especially like 

those we will meet, to understand that their future and our country’s future is really in their hands. 

Government can and should promote equality of opportunity 

while providing a suitable safety net for those in need. No matter 

how hard it might try, government cannot ensure equality of outcome. That part depends on the good judgment and hard work of 

families. I look forward to our discussion and learning how we can 

increase opportunity for more families to climb up the economic 

ladder. Again, I welcome today’s witnesses and thank you for convening this hearing. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you. We appreciate that and 

without objection, we will enter into the record the Congressional 

Research Service report that you mentioned. It is the one which I 

got the information about the fact that most of the kids are working in living in families where both parents are working. 

[The information follows:] 

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Chairman MCDERMOTT. So, there is a good bit of information 

I recommended to the Committee to read. If you have nothing else 

for bed time reading, it is a good explanation of what is going on 

in this country. 

We will come to our first panel of witnesses. They are all—all of 

your written statements will be entered into the record, so we 

would like you to talk for 5 minutes to us and tell us what is on 

your mind. The first of the panelists that we have we have gotten 

them from a variety of places and tried to get some spread here 

about what the kinds of problems people face. 

Let us start, Ms. Crawley with you. 

STATEMENT OF ANITA CRAWLEY, NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE 

Ms. CRAWLEY. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for providing me with the opportunity to 

share my story today about my struggles to get out of poverty. My 

name is Anita Crowley. About 4 years ago, a number of things happened at the same time to change my life. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Is your mike on? If you press—— 

Ms. CRAWLEY. Okay. Mr. Chairman and Members of Subcommittee. Thank you for providing me with the opportunity to 

share my story today about my struggles to get out of poverty. My 

name is Anita Crawley. About 4 years ago, a number of things happened at the same time to permanently change my life. 

After 12 years of working at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in a good paying job, I was laid off due to management decision 

to upgrade the position for a college graduate. Even though I was 

well trained and qualified for the job as a referral and authorization specialist, I became unemployed. 

Around the same time, my marriage of 12 years was ending in 

divorce. I decided to go back to school to further my education so 

I enrolled in college. I made it halfway through the second semester and then my youngest daughter was hit by a car and was hospitalized. My life changed. I was forced to make some hard decisions. I was a single mom with no support, no income, and now I 

have to take care of my injured daughter who suffered memory loss 

among other things at the tender age of 6. 

I had to take a leave from school to take care of my daughter. 

I tried to go back to school part-time, but I could not take two 

classes under the Pell grant. So, I had to make the painful decision 

to stop and take care of my daughter. I had used all of the money 

I had saved. I had to borrow money from my 401(k) after using all 

of the resources I had, I was broke. I could barely afford to feed 

and shelter my daughters. After losing my home, my car, my comfortable life as I knew it, I had no choice but to move back with 

my mother. 

I had to accept low income housing in a very bad neighborhood. 

My kids could not go outside to play because of the constant drug 

dealing and gunfire. I did everything I could to provide for my 

daughters. I had to get on public assistance, welfare, food stamps, 

cash benefits, TennCare, Job Search, Child Care Assistance while 

I searched for work. If it were not for my hope, faith in these government supports, I would not have been able to survive. 

45 

Eventually, I got connected to Catholic Charities of Nashville for 

their Welfare to Work program. After my training was completed, 

I was able to find part-time employment. I am one of the fortunate 

people because I was able to find a job. I am still struggling every 

day to make ends meat. 

Things that would have been helpful: It would have been helpful 

to have more education and training assistance. Help with housing, 

better housing, a school for smoother transition from Welfare to 

Work and more work support. 

As soon as I got the job, most of my income supports were cut. 

Food stamps, cash benefits and child care services were cut, forcing 

me to pay child care expenses and grocery bills. I was still faced 

with financial difficulties and pressure to take care of my children 

and keep my job. If there was a smoother transition from Welfare 

to Work, that would have been very helpful. 

I am now working full-time with Catholic Charities of Nashville, but only making about $21,000 for my family of four which is barely above minimum wage. 

While my income has gone up with the full-time employment this 

January 2007, all of my other support started to go down. This is 

not an incentive to work. Some of the value of the increased salaries is lost because of the cut in supports. 

Mr. Chairman, I have tried to take some steps forward, but so 

many things are holding me back. I ask that you keep families like 

me in mind when you work to create new Federal policies to address the needs of the poor and the working poor. 

We are fighting hard and playing by the rules, but are still struggling, and any small thing can push us further into poverty. We 

need the help of the Federal Government. Local organizations like 

Catholic Charities of Nashville simply cannot do it all. 

Thank you for the opportunity to tell my story. I would be happy 

to answer any questions you may have. 

Thank you. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you. You landed exactly at 5 

minutes. That is perfect. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Crawley follows:] 

Statement of Anita Crawley, Nashville, Tennessee 

Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for providing me 

with the opportunity to share my story today about my struggles to get out of poverty. 

Background 

My name is Anita Crawley, about four years ago a number of things happened 

at the same time to permanently change my life: 

After 12 years working at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in a good paying 

job—I was laid off due to management’s decision to upgrade the position for a college graduate. 

Even though I was well trained and qualified for the job as a Referral/Authorization Specialist I became unemployed. 

Around the same time my marriage of twelve years was ending in divorce. 

I decided to go back to school to further my education, so I enrolled in college. 

I made it half way through the second semester and then my youngest daughter 

was hit by a car and was hospitalized. 

My Life Changed 

I was forced to make some hard decisions. I was a single mom with no support, 

no income, and now I had to take care of my injured daughter, who suffered memory 

loss among other things at the tender age of six. 

46 

I had to take a leave from school to take care of my daughter. 

I tried to go back to school part-time, but I could not take two classes under the 

Pell Grant, so I had to make the painful decision to stop and take care of my daughter. 

I had used all the money I had saved, I had to borrow money from my 401k, after 

using all the resources I had, I was broke. 

I could barely afford to feed and shelter my daughters. After losing my home, my 

car, my comfortable life as I knew it, I had no choice, but to move back with my 

mother. 

I had to accept low income housing in a very bad neighborhood, my kids could 

not go outside to play because of the constant drug dealing and gun fire. 

I Did Everything I Could to Provide for My Daughters 

I had to get on public assistance—Welfare, food stamps, cash benefits, Tenncare, 

and Job Search Child Care assistance while I searched for work. 

If it were not for my hope, faith and these government supports, I would not have 

been able to survive. 

Eventually I got connected to Catholic Charities of Nashville for their welfare to 

work program 

After my training was completed, I was able to find part-time employment. 

I am one of the fortunate people because I was able to find a job—but I am still 

struggling every day to make ends meet. 

Things That Would Have Been Helpful 

It would have been helpful to have more education and training assistance, help 

with housing, a smoother transition from welfare to work, and more work support. 

As soon as I got the job, most of my income supports were cut—Food Stamps, cash 

benefits and childcare services were cut, forcing me to pay higher childcare expenses 

and grocery bills. 

I was still faced with financial difficulties and pressure to take care of my children 

and keep my job. 

If there was a smoother transition from welfare to work that would have been 

very helpful. 

I am now working full-time with Catholic Charities of Nashville, but only making 

about $21,000 for my family of four. 

While my income has gone up with the full-time employment since January 2007, 

all of my other supports started to go down. This is not an incentive to work. 

Also, some of the value of the increased salaries is lost because of the cut in supports 

Mr. Chairman, I have tried to take some steps forward, but so many things are 

holding me back. 

I ask that you keep families like me in mind when you work to create new federal 

policies to address the needs of the poor and the working poor. 

We are fighting hard and playing by the rules—but are still struggling—and any 

small emergency can push us further into poverty. We need the help of the federal 

government. 

Local organizations like Catholic Charities of Nashville simply cannot do it all. 

Thank for the opportunity to tell my story—I will be happy to answer any questions you may have. 

Thank you. 

f 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Ms. Bezear. 

STATEMENT OF MARILYN BEZEAR, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 

Ms. BEZEAR. Good morning. My name is Marilyn Bezear. I live 

in Harlem on West—— 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. I don’t think your mike is on. Press— 

there you go. 

Ms. BEZEAR. Okay. My name is Marilyn Bezear. I live in Harlem on West 143rd Street. I am 52 years old, and a single mother. 

My husband passed away in 1997. I have a 21-year old daughter 

named Cha’ta. I am a member of Community Voices Heard. I am 

here to tell you my story. 

47 

I was working in 1995 as a secretary in Harlem Hospital. After 

caring for my husband who died from cancer, I began to receive 

public assistance. After 5 years, I was able to get a position in the 

transitional job program working for the Department of Parks and 

Recreation. The job program lasted for 111⁄2 months. This program, 

which came through the Human Resources Administration, the 

welfare agency in New York, allowed me to work toward a goal of 

bringing home a salary and not have to rely on public assistance. 

One problem, however, was the education program of the program did not work. I wanted my General Equivalency Diploma 

(GED). After this time, I used 6 months on unemployment and attended adult education where I got my GED. 

I am working two jobs. One is a government agency doing clerical work in New York Department of Sanitation. I work alongside 

people that are making much higher salaries with benefits because 

I work through a temp agency. I am not entitled to the same benefits and salary, even though we are doing the same job. I work 20 

hours a week and make $8 an hour. I also do office cleaning at 

night for another agency for 15 hours a week for making a minimum of $10 to $15 depending on the site that I am cleaning. Together, after taxes, I bring home up to $300 a week. With this 

I pay my rent, food, telephone, and payments for the loan I took 

off for my daughter to go to college. Even this can be unstable. 

There have been times when the temp agency has less work and 

I had to find a temporary way to meet my needs like working part 

time in the bowling alley on late shift which got me home at 4:30 

in the morning. 

I have been in New York City public housing since 1994. If myself and my neighbors didn’t have access to public housing, I 

wouldn’t be able to stay in the neighborhood that I grew up in. 

Even with poor maintenance, service, repairs and security leading 

to my daughter recently being robbed in the building I lived in. 

Public housing is really the only access I have to affordable housing due to the fact of many new high and costly developments now 

happening in Harlem due to the salary I bring home. Right now, 

one of my high priorities to get an education for my daughter was 

the college loans that I had taken out. My debt is almost $35,000. 

I knew this would be a struggle, but I wanted my daughter to have 

a high education to give her the opportunity to succeed. 

Even with these loans, I still had to take out money for my weekly salary to help her with food and all of the expenses. It became 

very challenging. She ended up leaving college at Florida because 

her housing went up, because she has limited public transportation, and I couldn’t afford to buy her a car. She is now back living 

at home with me in New York City looking for a job. Hopefully, she 

will be attending school in New York City in the fall to have the 

opportunity to see the hardship and other young people encompassing their background. 

One of my biggest worries right now is my health care. I no 

longer have health insurance because of Medicaid recertification 

cut my off by mistake. When my daughter turned 21, she was no 

longer eligible under my case. So, no one in my household has 

health insurance now. The temp agency that I am working for don’t 

provide health insurance for me and my family. 

48 

Although my daughter still lives with me, because she is now 21, 

my case only includes me. My income may be still too high for one 

person to make me eligible for Medicaid. I am waiting to be recertified. This is my only option. 

As you see, the struggle that I live through does not come from 

one cause and any solution for poverty need to consider all of these 

elements. It is all based on trying to achieve real security in life. 

A real living wage would make the security and stability for me 

and my family. It is not only by the wage, but the tools I need to 

get a better paying job. I work to get my GED and further access 

to adult training education to provide me with security for my life. 

Education is the key to the future. My daughter and others like 

her would be more secure and self-sufficient if more aid was available and loan payments didn’t make such a burden on the whole 

family. The security of health coverage is limited by unreasonable 

income levels and people like my daughter are falling through the 

cracks. 

When she had to leave college, she lost her health coverage and 

is no longer eligible under my Medicaid. My access to housing is 

insecure. Frequently in my church, we have discussions about the 

fear of losing affordable housing. I hear the conversations on the 

bus, on the corner and in the stores. I know this conversation 

might be happening all over the country. 

I would like to take this time to thank everyone here to listening 

to my testimony. I am just one of the many who lives through these 

struggles. The challenge of trying to send a kid to college to work 

more than one job, making money stretch to the longest distance. 

Wages, education, training and health care are a necessity, and I 

hope my testimony did not fall on deaf ears. Thank you. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Bezear follows:] 

Statement of Marilyn Bezear, New York, New York 

My name is Marilyn Bezear. I live in Harlem on West 143rd St. in New York City. 

I am 52 years old and a single mother, (my husband passed away in 1997). I have 

a 21 year daughter named Cha’ta. I am a member of Community Voices Heard and 

I am here to tell you my story. 

I was working in 1995 as a secretary in Harlem Hospital. After caring for my husband, who died from cancer, I began to receive Public Assistance. After five years, 

I was able to get a position in a transitional job program working for the Department of Parks & Recreation. The job program lasted for 111⁄2 months. This program 

which came through HRA, the welfare agency in New York, allowed me to work toward a goal of bringing home a salary and not have to rely on Public Assistance. 

One problem, however, was that the education portion of the program did not work. 

I wanted my GED. After this time, I used the six months on unemployment insurance to attend Adult Basic Education where I got my GED. 

I am currently working two jobs. I am working with a temp agency doing clerical 

work in the New York City Department of Sanitation. I work alongside people that 

are making much higher salaries with benefits but because I work through a temp 

agency I am not entitled to the same benefits and salary even though we are doing 

the same job. I work 20 hours a week and make eight dollars an hour. I also do 

office cleaning at night for another agency for 15 hours a week making a minimum 

of $10 to $15 dollars an hour depending on the site that I am cleaning. 

Together, after taxes, I bring home up to $300 a week. With this, I pay my rent, 

food, telephone and payments for the loan that I took out for my daughter to go 

to college. Even this can be unstable. There have been times when the temp agency 

has had less work and I have to find a temporary way to meet my needs like working part-time in a bowling alley on a late shift getting home at 4:30 in the morning. 

49 

I have been in New York City Public Housing since 1994. If myself and my neighbors didn’t have the access to public housing, I wouldn’t be able to stay in the neighborhood that I grew up in. Even with poor maintenance, services, repairs and security (leading to my daughter recently being robbed in my building), public housing 

is really the only access I have to affordable housing due to the fact of many new 

and high cost developments happening now in Harlem and due to the salary I bring 

home. 

Right now, one of my highest priorities is to get an education for my daughter. With the college loans that I have taken out, the debt is almost $35,000 now. I knew 

that this would be a struggle but I want my daughter to have a higher education 

to give her the opportunity to succeed. Even with these loans, I still had to take 

out money from my weekly salary to help her with food and other expenses. It became very challenging. She ended up leaving college in Florida because her housing 

went up and because she had limited public transportation in her city (we couldn’t 

afford to buy a car). She is now back living with me in New York and looking for 

a job. Hopefully she will be attending school in New York City this fall. To have 

the opportunity to succeed shouldn’t be such a hardship for my daughter and other 

young people like her that come from similar backgrounds. 

One of my biggest worries right now is about my healthcare. I no longer have 

health insurance because a Medicaid recertification cut me off by mistake. When my 

daughter turned 21, she was no longer eligible under my case. So no one in my 

household has health insurance now. The temp agencies that I am working for don’t 

provide health insurance for me and my family. Although my daughter still lives 

me, because she is now 21, my case only includes me. My income may be considered 

too high for one person to make me eligible for Medicaid. I am waiting to be recertified, hoping that I am eligible because it is my only option right now. 

As you see, the struggles that I am living through don’t come from one cause and 

any solution to poverty need to consider all these elements. It is all based on trying 

to achieve real security in life. A real living wage would provide that security and 

stability for me and my family. And it is not only about the wage, but about the 

tools I need to get better paying jobs. I worked to get my GED and further access 

to adult training and education would provide more security in my life. Education 

is the key to a good future. My daughter and others like her would have be more 

secure and self-sufficient if more aid was available and loan payments didn’t put 

such a burden on the whole family. The security of health coverage is limited by 

unreasonable income levels and people like my daughter are falling through the 

cracks. When she had to leave college, she lost her health coverage and is no longer 

eligible under my Medicaid. My access to housing is insecure. Frequently in my 

church, we have discussions about the fear of losing affordable housing. I hear these 

conversations on the bus and in the corner stores and I know these conversations 

must be happening all over the country. 

I would like to take this time to thank everyone here for listening to my testimony. I am just one of many who live through these struggles. The challenge of trying to send a kid to college, working more than one job and making money stretch 

the longest distance. Wages, education, training and healthcare are a necessity. I 

hope my testimony did not fall on deaf ears. Thank You. 

f 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Mr. Douglas Noble. 

STATEMENT OF DOUGLAS NOBLE, GAITHERSBURG, 

MARYLAND 

Mr. NOBLE. Thank you. Thank you for the chance to speak 

today about the difficulties I have had and still are having with 

getting a job and moving out of homelessness and into my own 

home. My name is Douglas Noble, and I was born 50 years ago in 

the middle class community in Silver Spring, Maryland and went 

to the local Catholic high school. In 1980, I moved out of my mother’s house and began living on my own, renting my own apartments, owning my own car, and working full-time for nearly 2 decades. 

I am dually diagnosed. That means I have a diagnosed mental 

health problem, in my case depression, along with a substance 

50 

abuse problem. In my case, I am an alcoholic. I have had depression all of my adult life. When my depression got really bad until 

1998, I drank a lot to try and control things until I finally lost control of my life in 2001. I first began losing jobs and then my apartment. I temporarily moved in with my mother. The agreement was 

that I could stay there if I took my medication and stopped drinking. The medication was too expensive, and I wasn’t ready to stop 

drinking. 

I moved out of my mother’s house and began staying in the warehouse where I was working. That went on for some time until I 

broke my foot. In December of 2001, I fell and shattered my right 

foot so badly that I was in and out of the hospital many times. 

After the hospital, I moved into a respite care emergency shelter 

and transitional housing. I would like to point out that the community ministry shelter in Rockville and the out-patient addiction 

service program in Rockville both were very successful in helping 

me. 

A condition of transitional housing was sobriety. So, for the first 

time I started to think about stopping drinking. For the year, I 

worked on my dual diagnosis and graduated from the program I 

was in. The foot injury was still giving me problems and preventing 

me from working full time. Given that I had worked for many 

years and was now disabled, I applied and received Social Security 

disability income, approximately $800 a month. Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) gave me enough income and access to 

health insurance to live in a temporary group home paying for rent 

and expenses. Health insurance was paid for, my doctors’ visits and 

medications. 

In 2005, my depression was under control with medication, but 

my foot was still really bothering me. I started working on new 

goals, taking my medication for depression, taking college classes, 

getting a job and moving into my own home. I began taking graphics arts classes at a community college and began working seasonal 

jobs. I was meeting my goals and things were looking much better. 

Late in 2005, the Social Security Administration (SSA) determined 

that I was no longer disabled and canceled my benefits along with 

my health insurance. It has been a real struggle since then. 

Even though my foot bothers me when I stand on it for a while, 

my caseworker says that it is probably not worth appealing the decision after SSA has made up their minds. 

I am still living in temporary housing and working with an employment counselor. I saved a little money from a job I had over 

the holidays and from the remainder of my SSDI it is enough to 

cover my living expenses and the medications for depression, it 

costs a lot and is getting more and more expensive. 

I have worked most of my life and had some setbacks, but I am 

committed to returning to work and getting my own home. 

Friday I had a job interview that looks promising. It pays enough 

for rent and expenses and has health insurance. With that in place, 

I can move into my own apartment. Without it, life just stays a lot 

more difficult. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Noble follows:] 

51 

Statement of Douglas Noble, Gaithersburg, Maryland 

Thank you for the chance to speak today about the difficulties I’ve had and still 

are have with getting a job and moving out of homelessness and into my own home. 

My name is Douglas Noble and I was born fifty years ago in a middle class community in Silver Spring, Maryland and went to the local catholic high school. In 1980, 

I moved out of my mother’s house and began living on my own, renting my own 

apartments, owning my own car and working full time for nearly two decades. 

I’m dually diagnosed, that means I have a diagnosed mental health problem—in 

my case depression—along with a substance abuse problem—in my case I’m an alcoholic. I’ve had depression all my adult life. When my depression got really bad in 

1998, I drank a lot to try and control things, until I finally lost control of my life 

in 2001. I first began losing jobs and then my apartment. I temporarily moved in 

with my mother. The agreement was that I could stay there if I took my medication 

and stopped drinking. The medication was too expensive and I wasn’t ready to stop 

drinking. I moved out of my mother’s house and began staying in the warehouse 

where I was working. That went on for some time until I broke my foot. 

In December 2001, I fell and shattered my right foot so badly that I was in and 

out of the hospital many times. After the hospital, I moved into a respite care, emergency shelter and transitional housing. A condition of transitional housing was sobriety. So, for the first time I started to think about stopping drinking. For two 

years I worked on my dual diagnoses and graduated from the program I was in. 

T he foot injury was still giving me problems and preventing me from working full 

time. Because I had worked for many years and was now disabled, I applied and 

received Social Security Disability Income, approximately $800. SSDI gave my 

enough income and access to health insurance to live in a temporary group home, 

paying for rent and expenses. Health insurance was paying for my doctors’ visits 

and medication. 

In 2005, my depression was under control with medication, but my foot was still 

really bothering me. I started working on new goals: taking my medication for depression, taking college classes, getting a job and moving into my own home. I began 

taking graphics arts classes at a community college, and began working season jobs. 

I was meeting my goals and things were looking much better. 

Late in 2005, the Social Security Administration determined that I was no longer 

disabled and cancelled my benefits, along with my health insurance. It’s been a real 

struggle since then. Even though my foot bothers me when I stand on it for a while, 

my case worker says that it’s probably not worth appealing the decision after SSA 

has made up their minds. 

I’m still living in temporary housing and working with an employment counselor. 

I saved a little money from a job I had over the holidays and from SSDI. It’s enough 

to cover my living expenses and the medication for depression that costs a lot and 

is getting more and more expensive. 

I’ve worked most my life and had some set backs. But, I’m committed to returning 

to work and getting my own home. Friday I had a job interview that looks promising. It pays enough for rent and expenses and has health insurance. With that 

in place, I can move into my own apartment. Without it, life just stays a lot more 

difficult. 

f 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Hawkins and Ms. Dodd, do you want to talk together? You 

can split the time any way you want. 

STATEMENT OF TAVON HAWKINS AND NICOLE DODD 

Mr. HAWKINS. Good morning. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify. My name is Tavon Hawkins. My fiance and I 

participate in the Center For Fathers, Families and Workforce Development, Baltimore Building Strong Family Program. The program provides us with relationship skills building and a great 

deals of emotional support. My parents were not together when I 

was growing up. My father was not active in my life. The absence 

of my father made me realize the importance of a father figure. I 

may not have had a father in my life, but I do realize the imporVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:36 Jun 15, 2007 Jkt 035776 PO 00000 Frm 00055 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\35776A.XXX 35776A
52 

tance of being there for my son. The Building Strong Family Program has helped me learn that I need to be not only good father, 

but also a good partner to Nicole. 

My fiance and I have 2 years—been together for 21⁄2 years. Just 

recently had our first child. During our time together, I have been 

employed on and off. Most of the employment I have been able to 

obtain is seasonal. I have a misdemeanor offense on my record and 

it makes it hard for me to find long-time employment. I am the 

provider for my family and at times—at times I find that hard to 

make ends meet. 

Ms. DODD. Good morning. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify. My name is Nicole Dodd. My fiance and I have 

participated in the Baltimore Building a Strong Family program. 

The program helped us to strengthen our relationship by teaching 

us the right ways to talk to each other when we are angry and 

frustrated. I have worked often on my adult life. I have experience. 

However, I do not have a high school diploma. I realize that that 

is stopping me for really getting a good job. I know the importance 

of having a high school diploma, but since I have a child, I don’t 

have the child care and cannot afford to pay for it. Social services 

will not assist me unless I take my fiance to child support. 

I do not want to do that because Tavon takes good care of our 

child. I think—I think that that will be a slap in his face. I am 

committed to our relationship and know that we will make it regardless of our struggles, and I am thankful for the Building of a 

Strong Family program for helping us to see that. We will be getting married on March 24th, 2007. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hawkins and Ms. Dodd follows:] 

Statement of Tavon Hawkins and Nicole Dodd, Baltimore, Maryland 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: 

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify. My name is Tavon Hawkins. 

My fiance ́ and I have participated in the Center for Fathers, Families and Workforce Development’s (CFWD) Baltimore Building Strong Families program. The program provided us with relationship skill building and a great deal of emotional support. 

My parents were not together when I was growing-up. My father was not active 

in my life. The absence of my father made me realize the importance of a father 

figure. I may not have had a father in my life, but I do realize the importance of 

being there for my son. The Building Strong Families Program has helped me learn 

that I need to be not only a good father but also a good partner to Nicole. 

My fiance ́ and I have been together for 21⁄2 years and just recently had our first 

child. During our time together I have been employed on and off. Most of the employment I have been able to obtain is seasonal. I have a misdemeanor offense on 

my record and it makes it hard for me to find long term employment. I am the provider for my family and at times I find it hard to make ends meet. 

Testimony of Nicole Dodd 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: 

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify. My name is Nicole Dodd. My 

fiance ́ and I have participated in the Center for Fathers, Families and Workforce 

Development’s (CFWD) Baltimore Building Strong Families program. The program 

helped us to strengthen are relationship by teaching us the right way to talk to each 

other when we are angry and frustrated. 

I have worked off and on all of my adult life. I have work experience; however 

I do not have my high school diploma. I realize that this is stopping me from really 

getting a good job. I know the importance of having a high school diploma, but since 

having my child I do not have childcare and cannot afford to pay for it. Social Services will not assist me unless I take my fiance ́ to child support. I do not want to 

53 

do this because Tavon takes good care of me and our child and I think that would 

be a slap in the face to him. 

I am committed to our relationship and know that we will make it regardless of 

our struggles and I am thankful to Building Strong Families for helping us to see 

this. We will be getting married on March 24, 2007. 

f 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Okay. Thank you very much for your 

testimony, and thank you all for your testimony. 

I would like to ask Ms. Bezear. One of the things that I think 

that is hard for us to understand is how does somebody live on 

$300 a week in New York City? 

Ms. BEZEAR. You are right, because it is a—really, really a 

struggle. Like I stated, with that money I pay my rent and I do 

my—— 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Tell me specifically, you are living in 

public assisted housing? 

Ms. BEZEAR. I live in public housing. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. So, it is a percentage of how much 

money you have that goes to your pay? How much rent do you pay 

a month? 

Ms. BEZEAR. Right now I pay $285. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. So, one week is for rent. What else do 

you to have pay for? 

Ms. BEZEAR. I have to pay for my telephone, food expenses because I am not entitled to food stamps because my income is so 

high. I am not going to—like I stated, I also have to pay for my 

daughter’s college loans. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Let me ask about the food. What is 

the level at which food stamp cuts off? It sounds like you have got 

$100 a month. That is too much to get food stamps? 

Ms. BEZEAR. Exactly. It is too much. It is too much. They go 

on the level of how much you make. So my—what they consider to 

be hundred—1,200 added up, that is too high. So, I am not entitled 

to food stamps. That is how they work it in New York City. So, as 

I stated, the money I do have, it is a struggle because I have to 

pay college loans for my daughter, so that is why I think more 

money should be going to affordable—more into affordable housing 

for people and for colleges for people like me and my daughter. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. How did you get a loan for colleges for 

your daughter? 

Ms. BEZEAR. Well, through Sallie Mae. Through Sallie Mae. 

The college loan place. Since she is an independent child, they considered, okay, then I was working at the time so they don’t really— 

they go by your income, but they want to make sure you have good 

credit and you can pay the loan back. So, as I said, most of my 

money goes to paying the loans back. That is why she is not in college, because it was expensive and she had to come back home. So, 

once again, I think I feel there should be more affordable colleges 

and lower interest rates for college loans. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Your health care is by the emergency 

rooms of New York City hospitals? 

Ms. BEZEAR. It is for Medicaid. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. You are still on Medicaid? 

54 

Ms. BEZEAR. I was. I was on Medicaid but I am not on Medicaid 

any more. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Because you don’t have a child. 

Ms. BEZEAR. Medicaid, they cut me off by mistake. They cut me 

off by mistake because the recertification. I sent my—what they 

call—you send recertification through the mail. When I sent it 

through the mail, they lost it. They cut me off. When I went to the 

clinic, I found out I was cut off. I didn’t realize it until I had the 

clinic appointment. When she turned 21, they cut me off and they 

consider me single. Since they consider me single, they state they 

are going to go by income because my daughter is no longer on my 

income on my case. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Mr. Hawkins and Ms. Dodd, how do 

you live now? I didn’t hear your income level. How do you get by? 

Ms. DODD. Right now we are living with a family member. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. So, you are living in somebody else’s 

house? 

Ms. DODD. Yes. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Neither of you have employment at 

this point? 

Ms. DODD. No, sir. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. What kind of employment—are you in 

any kind of training program or any kind of program where you 

might have assistance to get in to employment like the one that 

Ms. Crawley was talking about? 

Ms. DODD. The Build a Strong Family program, it helps you 

with employment and things like that. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Your health care presently? 

Ms. DODD. No. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Neither of you have access to health 

care? 

Ms. DODD. No. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Do you have access to health care? 

Ms. CRAWLEY. Yes, sir. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Because of—— 

Ms. CRAWLEY. Well, I still have TennCare, and they approved 

me until 18 months after I started. Well, I had to work on my job 

and they only go ahead and give it to me for 18 months. I guess 

that is just their law or policy there. So, everything else was cut 

off except our TennCare. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. Weller. 

Mr. WELLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Again, welcome to our panelists, and I want to commend each of 

you for your presentation. I remember the first time I appeared before a legislative Committee and how nervous I was. I want to congratulate each of you on how well you presented yourself in talking 

about something personal, which is your daily lives. 

We are limited in time so I would like to direct my questions to 

Mr. Hawkins and Ms. Dodd. First I want to congratulate you on 

your plans to get married. That is wonderful news. You have got 

a little boy now, a 4-month-old, I understand. Congratulations. He 

is doing well? 

Ms. DODD. Yes. 

55 

Mr. WELLER. Congratulations. 

Mr. McDermott kind of started on a question I was interested in 

directing to both of you. Tell us more about this program at the 

Baltimore Center for Fathers Families and Workforce Development. What do they offer and have they made some changes in 

your life? Do you feel they have helped you? 

Ms. DODD. Yes. Actually, they made a big change in our lives. 

First, coming to people who you really don’t know, just letting your 

feelings out on life. They actually—they take you in and they sit 

and one on one and you have your conversations with the 

facilitators. They kind of pinpoint everything that you really need. 

Like, well, housing, where we are still working on that. On housing 

situation. Jobs. 

On the limit of working on that—as I stated, my son is only 4 

months now. Child care is kind of hard. Actually we really haven’t 

looked at different day care providers and things like that, but normally we—they don’t take you until you are about 6 months to a 

year. 

So, that left me out of work for that long. They are trying to 

work on different pinpoints. They are helping us with the wedding 

and things like that. Things that we need, expenses, and things 

like that. 

Mr. WELLER. Mr. Hawkins, looking at Ms. Dodd’s testimony, 

you must be a pretty good father. Pretty good dad. 

Mr. HAWKINS. Yes. 

Mr. WELLER. The program that you are in—this Baltimore program, does it help you find ways to be a better father? 

Mr. HAWKINS. You have little sessions. You have little videos, 

and you sit back and talk about like what would you do different 

when it comes down to your child, how would you raise your child 

from how that you have been raised. So, it basically helps you out 

with a lot because actually getting to sit down, like you said before, 

in front of people that you don’t know and express your feelings on 

life and what you remember and how can you become better. How 

can you become better for your child? 

Mr. WELLER. You have indicated in comments regarding this 

program that the program helps you in searching for jobs and, Mr. 

Hawkins, you indicated you have been looking. 

Mr. HAWKINS. You can go up and ask RUN for their training 

and once you complete that, you can verify your job. 

Mr. WELLER. For you, what has been your biggest challenge in 

finding full-time employment? 

Mr. HAWKINS. I guess, like before the misdemeanor charge I 

have. So, it played a major part like trying to find a job with a 

criminal background. It is a little hard. 

Mr. WELLER. Ms. Dodd, in your statement, you indicated that 

you do not have a high school diploma. 

Ms. DODD. Right. 

Mr. WELLER. Are you working to obtain a GED? 

Ms. DODD. Actually, well, we go back—we are supposed to be 

looking for a program so I can get my GED. 

Mr. WELLER. Is this Baltimore Center—do they have a program 

that they sponsor or do they help? 

56 

Ms. DODD. Yes. From my understanding, they help me find a 

program, so—— 

Mr. WELLER. Then your goal is to have your own—— 

Ms. DODD. Salon. 

Mr. WELLER. Have you worked in a salon? Have you been able 

to have experience—— 

Ms. DODD. No. I haven’t worked in a salon. I started to go the 

hair school. So, you have your basics and all of that, but I worked 

out of a house a lot. 

Mr. WELLER. The programs where you would learn these skills, 

do they require a GED before you can enter the program? 

Ms. DODD. No, they don’t. 

Mr. WELLER. I see my time has expired. Thank you for being 

here. You both have presented yourself very well. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you. Mr. McNulty. 

Mr. MCNULTY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Noble, thank you for being here today and for sharing very 

personal aspects of your life. I know that you are taking medication 

for your depression. What are you currently doing with regard to 

your addiction to alcohol? 

Mr. NOBLE. I go to self-help groups, and I have a close community of friends that I communicate with on an almost daily basis, 

almost every day. 

Mr. MCNULTY. How is that coming along? How long have you 

been sober now? 

Mr. NOBLE. Since December of 2001. 

Mr. MCNULTY. Congratulations. 

Ms. Bezear, I would like to follow up on the Chairman’s questions about just the practicality of trying to live on that limited income for you and for your daughter, and if it is not too personal— 

if it is too personal, just tell me so, but if it is not too personal, 

can I ask you about the diet that you are able to afford on such 

a restricted income? Is that a struggle? 

Ms. BEZEAR. Of course it is a struggle. It just—I am just barely 

managing. Like because right now, my priority like I said, was trying to get a better education for my daughter so she won’t have to 

go through the same thing I am going through. I am paying college 

loans. I am doing my food and everything with the money I make, 

and so I barely get by on what I do. I work two jobs, and I bring 

home a limited amount of money, that is what the $300 is what 

I bring home after taxes taken out. So, it is very limited. 

Mr. MCNULTY. I presume that your nutrition needs therefore 

are a major concern? 

Ms. BEZEAR. Of course it is. As I said, it is hard. I am barely 

making it, but I am able to like kind of do what I gotta do. Okay, 

like that. That is basically what I—basically what I do right now. 

Mr. MCNULTY. On another matter, you don’t have health insurance. You don’t have Medicaid. What do you do if you get sick or 

your daughter gets sick? 

Ms. BEZEAR. There is nothing I could do right now because I 

am waiting for results and like I said, I am hoping they don’t say 

that my Medicaid that—$300 is no money but through Medicaid, 

they say you got to work a certain amount and now that my daughter is 21, she is no longer on my case now. So, that is when they 

57 

took her off, and that is one thing like I would like to state that 

I think there should be programs where kids like her, they are 

going to school, they should still have—continue with their Medicaid and health insurance. 

Mr. MCNULTY. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to thank you for your leadership on these issues 

through the years, and I look forward to working with you in your 

role as Chairman of this Committee, and I have been in public life 

a long time at the local, State and national levels, and people today 

ask me what my priorities are, and they think I am going to mention some project in the district or something. It goes back to the 

basics. In the year 2007, in the richest Nation on the face of the 

Earth, no one should be hungry. No one should be homeless. No 

one should be without adequate health care, and I believe that, 

under the leadership of Chairman McDermott, you will see some 

attention to these issues. 

Thank you very much. 

Ms. BEZEAR. Okay. Thank you. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Mr. Herger. 

Mr. HERGER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. 

Chairman, I want to congratulate you on your Chairmanship. I enjoyed very much the 6 years that we spent together here, and I recognize and want to congratulate you on your priorities in these 

areas. These areas certainly remain my priorities as well, so I 

thank you for this hearing. 

I want to just commend each and every one of you for being here 

this morning, and even though there are very difficult situations 

that each of you have found yourselves in and, I might mention, 

for even those of us up here, no matter where you are, we find ourselves in difficult situations. When we come to this Earth, I think 

each of us has this little bag of challenges that we have, and everyone’s is different. Yet, each and every one of us has them, and I 

want to thank you for the positive ways, as we have heard in your 

testimony, that you are working to deal with your challenges of 

rolling up your sleeves, of working to help yourselves better the situations that have been most challenging in your lives, and I would 

just like to ask you: With what experience you have had and with 

where you have been, do you have any recommendations? There is 

nothing like hindsight. 

We look back and we say, ‘‘Gee, if I had to do that over again, 

I would do it this way, and I wish we would have had more common sense back when we were younger than we have now,’’ but 

again, that is how we all are, but having said this, are there any 

of you who would like to give any comments on maybe what you 

would do differently or recommendations to others that you might 

do to help yourselves and that others might do to help themselves? 

For example, education, we know that is important, or some of 

these decisions we make. 

I want to commend the two of you, Mr. Hawkins and Ms. Dodd, 

for your working together. 

Mr. Hawkins, we heard from you, how you mentioned that, for 

whatever reason, you did not have a father in your life, but yet, 

you have learned from that that you want to be a father and are 

a father to your son. How commendable. 

58 

Mr. HAWKINS. Thank you. 

Mr. HERGER. If we could just incorporate that into our communities. Being a father of nine and being married 31 years, boy, it 

is a challenge being married, more a challenge to my wife than it 

is to me, but the challenges of working together, the counseling you 

mentioned the two of you have had, we all go through that, and 

yet, that staying together and working to make it, how rewarding 

that is. So, I am kind of going around and around here. Are there 

any things that you would do differently or things that you see that 

would help to make your life and others’ better if you could? 

Mr. HAWKINS. I am not even sure at this point. 

Ms. DODD. For me, education. 

Mr. HERGER. Education? 

Ms. DODD. Education. 

Mr. HERGER. So, what would you have done differently if you 

had it to do over again or recommend to others, I might say? 

Ms. DODD. Sit in classrooms. 

Mr. HERGER. Pardon? 

Ms. DODD. Sit in the classrooms. 

Mr. HERGER. Stay in the classrooms. We see that, and that is 

really the key to doing well, education. 

I want to commend you. I understand you are getting that high 

school diploma, and this idea—I want to commend you—college is 

so expensive with children, all the money that goes out, but yet, 

that is really such a key. 

Ms. BEZEAR. Yes, it is. Uh-huh. 

Mr. HERGER. Ms. Bezear, do you have any comments? 

Ms. BEZEAR. Well, first, I think that the interest rates on loans 

are very high. There should be lower interest rates on kids that 

want to go to college. I think everybody—school is a necessity that 

you need in life to achieve something, because without—even with 

a GED, you need more than that. You need college; you need a college degree, and right now, that is something I want to get, but I 

cannot do that simply because I am working a job, and I am trying 

to maintain a life style for my daughter, and for me doing that, I 

want her to succeed in her life where I did not. 

So, I think there should be more programs for kids, for the blue 

collar kids and mostly lower interest rates on college loans. 

Mr. HERGER. Well, my time is up, but really what each of you 

are doing are, really, in your ways, being role models by the fact 

that you are working for your life and for others around you, and 

I want to commend you. 

Mr. Noble, just a last comment here. There are so many today 

who struggle with this chemical imbalance and the different things 

that cause depression. I want to thank you for your hanging in 

there and for being drug free and alcohol free for these years. 

Again, I want to thank each of you for coming here and your 

courage. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Mr. Lewis. 

Mr. LEWIS OF GEORGIA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing today. 

I appreciate your work, your leadership, your vision, your dedication, to this issue. 

59 

I appreciate each and every one of you for being here today, and 

Ms. Crawley, Ms. Bezear, I appreciate your emphasis on education. 

I happen to believe that education is a great equalizer. 

Ms. BEZEAR. That is right. 

Mr. LEWIS OF GEORGIA. Ms. Crawley, I attended school in 

Nashville for 6 years. I grew up on a farm, very poor, in rural Alabama, and moved to Nashville in 1957 when I was 17 years old, 

and I want to welcome you here—— 

Ms. CRAWLEY. Thank you. 

Mr. LEWIS OF GEORGIA [continuing]. And thank you for being 

here. 

I do not understand it. I do not understand how people survive. 

I do not understand how you make ends meet. I know you believe, 

with your faith and everything, that you can make your way out 

of nowhere, but can you just tell me what it is like to survive each 

and every day? 

Ms. CRAWLEY. Yes. Well, my faith is a big part of my life, and 

I depend on what my belief is to get me through the day, so I depend on that, first of all. I always put that first, and I just do what 

I have to do. It is hard being a single mom with two kids, and even 

though I work full-time, and I have a good job and they pay way 

more than minimum wage, it is still not a lot, and with children, 

you have to have child care. 

If I work a full-time job, I have to have child care, which is very 

expensive, so it is hard with that. At the end of the month, I do 

not have hardly any money, but I have family that is in a better 

situation who can help me, and I just do what I have to do, and 

like I said, my faith, I believe, takes me through, and I know that 

to be. That is just my strength right there, and I hope for—I want 

to go back to school, and I plan on going back to school this fall 

because I want a better life for my children. They deserve a better 

life, so that is what I am working for. 

Mr. LEWIS OF GEORGIA. When I was growing up, I heard my 

mother and father say over and over again ‘‘Go to school. Get an 

education so you will not have to go through what I am going 

through.’’ 

Ms. CRAWLEY. Right. 

Mr. LEWIS OF GEORGIA. I like that idea that you have been 

hopeful and are looking to the future. You want things to be better 

for your children. 

Ms. Bezear, tell me what it is like—I do not understand. How 

can you live in New York City? It is a very expensive place. I think 

the Chairman raised the question. How can you live in New York 

City on what you are making? 

Ms. BEZEAR. As she said it, it is faith. Okay. You all make this 

totally—it is really a struggle. 

Mr. LEWIS OF GEORGIA. It is an everyday struggle. 

Ms. BEZEAR. An everyday struggle. I go through it every day. 

Again, I am going to work making sure I got things in my household, things like that. A phone is a necessity. I have to have a 

phone in my house. Okay. That is a necessity. I have to have that. 

As far as everything else, like for me to buy a new pair of sneakers, 

I do not buy that for myself because I cannot afford to do that for 

myself, okay? So, as I say, it is a struggle, and I am barely making 

60 

it by. So, that is why I place so much emphasis on education because education is the key for all of us, for my children and her 

children and all our children. 

Mr. LEWIS OF GEORGIA. The two of you have been working. 

I wonder whether you have ever claimed the earned income tax 

credit when you have filed your taxes. You have? 

Ms. BEZEAR. Yes, I have. 

Ms. CRAWLEY. Yes. 

Mr. LEWIS OF GEORGIA. Other family members and neighbors 

are claiming it? 

Ms. CRAWLEY. I think so. 

Ms. BEZEAR. Yes. We do work like that in community voices, 

tell people about the earned income credit and stuff like that let 

them know what they are entitled to out there. Like a lot of people 

did not know about earned income credit. It just recently came out 

that they got earned income credit, so that is one thing we had. We 

had community voices. We had talked to them about the earned income credit and how to go about it, and let them know that they 

are entitled to this money because that money is out there. 

Mr. LEWIS OF GEORGIA. That is a very good thing to do. 

Mr. Chairman, you may be interested in knowing our Subcommittee is going to hold a hearing on earned income tax credit 

this afternoon. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Oh, good. Maybe they can stay around 

and listen, and they can get some good testimony about it. 

Mr. LEWIS OF GEORGIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Yes. 

Next, Mr. Camp. 

Mr. CAMP. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank all of you for coming here to testify. It is not 

easy to come before a Committee of the Congress and talk about 

your life, but it really is helpful to us to give us some insight into 

what we can do best to help you and others that are similarly situated, and, I wanted to ask, if it is not too personal, one of the common themes we have seen about poverty is that often people do not 

finish high school, and Ms. Dodd, I think you said, if you had one 

thing you would do over, you would stay in school. 

What pressures—if you can just talk about, maybe not necessarily what you did, saw or faced, but what pressures are there 

that caused that to be such a big thing that so many students do 

not finish high school? We find that that is often a decision that 

has long-reaching consequences. If you could just, each of you, sort 

of talk about that, what sort of pressures, and Ms. Crawley, why 

don’t we start with you. 

Ms. CRAWLEY. Okay. Well, for me, it was, of course, that my 

daughter was hit by a car, so I could not finish school. I finished 

high school, but if I could go back, I would go to college as soon 

as I finished high school, and I would not wait. I got a job at Vanderbilt, and I thought it was a pretty good job, and I got comfortable, and I got settled in, and I was not thinking that I would 

lose my job years later because I did not get a college degree. 

So, I would definitely finish college, but it is hard, and later on, 

when you have kids and a family, and of course, I did not know 

61 

that I would be divorced with two kids. I just did not know that 

would happen. 

So, for me, I would definitely—it is just hard trying to raise kids 

and feed them because, when I had my kids, my life became them. 

I wanted them to have everything in life that I did not, and I want 

them to have such a better life than I do, so I always—right now, 

I try to look for a better school for them, so they are in Magna 

schools even though—I cannot afford private schools, so I try to do 

the next best thing. 

So, everything for me is just for them. I do everything for them 

so they can have a better life and a good life, and it is hard because 

there are a lot of things that they want, and I cannot get it for 

them because I cannot afford it, so—— 

Mr. CAMP. All right. Thank you very much. Ms. Bezear. 

Ms. BEZEAR. Okay. Me? Okay. 

It was like—for me, it was like maybe just peer pressure. Okay. 

I dropped out. I came back after I thought about it. I seen what 

I was doing, and I knew, in order for me to get a job, I needed 

something better than just—I needed to get my GED, so I went 

back to school to get my GED, and so that is why, once again, I 

stress education because I want to be a role model for my daughter, 

so I cannot be a role model saying I dropped out of school and am 

staying home, so I chose to go back to school, to get a job, once 

again, to be a role model and let her see what I am doing so she 

could follow that and have a suitable and better life. 

Mr. CAMP. All right. Thank you. 

Mr. Noble. 

Mr. NOBLE. Yes. As far as education goes, there was a lot of 

pressure on me to go to school when I was in high school, and a 

situation occurred in my senior year of high school where my parents split up and where my father was not in the house and my 

brother got really sick, and I stopped going my senior year, but 

there was still a lot of pressure on me by my mom, and she wanted 

me to go back, and so I went back. 

I got my GED in 1978 here in the State of Maryland, and I got 

a job, and I worked for many years, and I took some classes at college, but then my drinking got progressively heavier, and I kind of 

lost interest. I just became interested in bringing home money and 

not improving my status, and eventually, it got so that my very life 

was in doubt because of my addiction. 

So, since I have been sober, I have been able to go back to college, take college courses. I have not been able to get a job because 

of the courses yet, but it has not hurt. I have been able to get the 

Pell grant, too. 

Mr. CAMP. All right. Thank you. 

Mr. Hawkins. 

Mr. HAWKINS. Well, I guess, for me, it was finances. College, 

school—going to school costs, so I guess, for me, it was like trying 

to find a job to actually have the money to go to college. Once I 

get situated, though, where I do find a good job to take care of my 

son, to get him situated, then I will go back to college to finish trying to pursue my dream. 

Mr. CAMP. All right. Ms. Dodd. 

62 

Ms. DODD. For me, it was not peer pressure. I did everything 

because I wanted to do it. If I had just stayed in that Spanish 

class—I did not think that was a credit I needed to graduate. If I 

had stayed in that class just to see, I would have it. That was my 

only reason. I went to the twelfth grade. I did not have my Spanish 

credit to graduate, and that was the only reason, and by the time 

I was to go to summer school, they did not have Spanish as a class 

that I could pick up, so—— 

Mr. CAMP. All right. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Ms. Berkley. 

Ms. BERKLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I also want to 

thank all of you for being here. This cannot be an easy thing to do, 

because I cannot imagine coming in front of a congressional Committee, a group of strangers looking at you, and sharing these experiences. 

I keep thinking every time I listen to your stories that if not for 

the grace of God—I came from an immigrant family. They could 

not speak English. My dad has a ninth-grade education, but the 

breaks came my way, and they just—so much of this has to do with 

luck and staying healthy and not having broken homes and being 

able to keep it together, and there are certain tipping points in all 

of our lives where it just tips, and there does not seem to be anything you can do about it, but I think that is the purpose of Government. Government is supposed to provide that safety net and 

not have anybody in this country fall through the cracks, and I 

think that is where we need to step up to the plate. I do not think 

this country can afford to lose a single one of our citizens to bad 

luck, bad fortune, bad breaks, and it is our responsibility to make 

sure everybody has the opportunity and the ability to—it is not 

only to reach that American dream, but just to be able to tap into 

whatever part there is of them to move them in a forward position 

and take care of our families. 

I am the mother of two kids, both of them in college right now. 

I know what it is like when they are asking you for things, and 

the tuition is beyond what you ever dreamed tuition could possibly 

be and knowing how important it is, yet, knowing you have also 

got to eat. 

So, when I meet with my welfare-to-work moms in my district of 

Las Vegas—and I have got a relatively wealthy district, and yet, 

there are so many of my own constituents who are just getting by 

or not getting by, but when I meet with my welfare-to-work moms, 

what they tell me is—when I say, ‘‘What are the two things that 

you need more than anything?’’ 

Obviously, they need good education and this and that, but what 

they need is child care to take care of their kids, so they can get 

out of the house, and transportation because it does not do you any 

good if you get the job training and you cannot get to work. 

So, I think one of the things that we should be considering as 

a Committee, as time goes on, is how we are going to provide people with child care so you can get out of the house, get your GED 

and get the job that you want, and you need to take care of that 

little one and transportation to get to work, and that is the very 

63 

least that you should expect from your Government and that your 

Government should be able to provide to you. 

So, I thank you very much again for being here. You make me 

proud, and you make me embarrassed at the same time that this 

Nation has not done enough for its citizens, and I thank you for 

being here. 

Ms. BEZEAR. Thank you. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Mr. Porter will inquire. 

Mr. PORTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I, too, appreciate 

you all being here today. 

I am from the State of Nevada, and we have unique challenges 

as does every community. What I appreciate so much is the fact 

that you are here today so we can learn from you, and I need your 

help. 

What can we do to improve access? I know there are multiple 

Government agencies. There are different faith-based organizations, and I was in a meeting the other day in the Budget Committee where we look at the moneys being spent in this country, 

and we are spending about $600 billion, which is a lot of zeros— 

and I am not sure how many zeros—$600 billion a year on welfare 

programs. If you figure there are about 20 million poor kids, all 

with a face, all with a family, all with individual challenges, we are 

spending somewhere between $20,000 and $30,000 per poor child 

a year across this country. How much of that is really going to the 

child? I am very frustrated and very concerned. That is a lot of 

money a year, and I am sure that children would like to see some 

more of that money. So, I guess my question is: 

What can we do as the Federal Government to help access, to 

make it easier so we can help you cut through layers and layers 

of red tape, whether it be from the Federal side and also from the 

faith-based side? I know, as deep-faithed myself and as, I believe, 

most everyone here does today, we depend a lot on our church, I 

am Catholic, and it is a great network, but what can we do to help 

you? What can you teach us so we can help you have better access 

to some of these programs? There is a lot of money out there that 

is going someplace, and it is not all going where it should go. So, 

that is my question. 

Ms. Crawley, would you have an idea? 

Ms. CRAWLEY. Sure, I think a smoother transition from like the 

Welfare to Work. If it was not such—when you start working and 

you are thinking, great, you get income, well, you have all of these 

other things that take your income immediately like child care— 

child care is so expensive—and then you have, like, child care and 

insurance. Like my insurance, they did let me keep it for 18 

months. 

Well, it expires this year, and the insurance where I work is so 

expensive that I will not be able to afford it because it is like $200 

a paycheck, and I do not make that much now, just $21,000, and 

I do not know how I will be able to afford it. So, if there were programs out there for people who are starting to work but still need 

some support from the Government, maybe insurance or some help 

with child care—maybe if the Government did not pay all of the 

child care or all of the insurance but would give us some help, 

those are the things that can kind of hold you back, because even 

64 

though you are working a full-time job and you are making money, 

you are still having to spend so much money in all of those areas. 

You almost feel like you are not getting ahead. 

Mr. PORTER. So, child care is really where you need help? 

Ms. CRAWLEY. Yes. 

Ms. BEZEAR. Okay. Like she says, child care is a necessity. I 

think it is high job wages. The wage in New York is just too low. 

You cannot survive on—what is it? $7.00. We need higher wages, 

and they keep saying we have programs out here, okay, different 

programs. There are programs. A lot of people do not know about 

the programs. They are not accessible to these programs. 

Everybody does not have computers in their houses to find those 

different programs. Okay. There should be more job training and 

computer training so people will know how to find these programs. 

They say they are out there. They say, ‘‘Well, do you have a computer at home?’’ If you do not have a computer at home, you do not 

know how to find these different places. So, with me, I think it 

should be more job training, high living wages and more computer 

training for people who want to find out about different things to 

make their lives so they will not have to be such a struggle. 

Mr. PORTER. Thank you. 

Mr. Noble. 

Mr. NOBLE. Yes. I would say the job training, I agree with Ms. 

Bezear, what she just said, about the job training, and if there 

were a program that I could have gotten into when I realized that 

I could function, okay—again, that I did not have to drink and that 

I could function—I think if I had been directed into that program 

and they said, ‘‘Look, we will teach you this, and then after you 

learn this, we will get you a job.’’ I know that sounds simple, but 

I wish that that was the situation. 

Then another issue that is important to me is health care because, like I say, I have not had health care since 2005. I just had 

it up until then. At first, I was covered under the State social seniors services, and then I got—when I was awarded SSDI, I had 

health care, but then when that got cut off, I have not had health 

care. 

So, I have got to be doubly careful as to how I take care of myself. Of course, it is important all the time, and a couple times, I 

have gone to a local community clinic when I have had some real 

troubling significant colds, and I thought I may have had an ear 

infection, and so I went there, and those have come in really handy 

a couple times, and that is how I have been able to get by. 

Thank you. 

Mr. PORTER. Thank you. Mr. Hawkins. 

Mr. HAWKINS. Well, I feel like everyone should be treated 

equally. Everyone should be given a chance to learn a certain skill, 

to learn many things in their lives. I just feel—like I said before, 

as far as like you finding a job, I still feel like some of the wages 

are too low because it is like, okay, you have a place. You are renting a house. Half the time your check is not even enough to cover 

your gas and electric and your rent. So, I just feel like we just need 

assistance in a lot of areas. 

Mr. PORTER. Ms. Dodd. 

65 

Ms. DODD. Yes, basically the same thing as everyone said. Child 

care is really a major part. That is the biggest issue. Like, actually, 

it is real high, so regardless like they said, whatever job that you 

do have, after your rent, gas and electric, your check is gone. With 

child care, you have to find a way to maintain that. You do have 

cover charges, expenses, late fees—oh, gosh—all in one bunch, yes. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you very much. Mr. Davis. 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Porter, my colleague from Nevada, 

and a number of my other colleagues, have raised the question of 

what Government can do, how Government can make certain programs work more efficiently. I was thinking, as I heard him ask 

the question, and as I heard others ask the question, one thing the 

Government can do is stop doing harm. 

One thing the Government can do is stop cutting programs that 

need to be sustained and that need more money. One thing the 

Government can do is to stop moving in the wrong direction, and 

I made some notes just to remind me, and I wanted to share some 

things with you that you probably are not aware of and that most 

people in the audience are not aware of. 

When I first came to the Congress in 2003, we spent about a 

year arguing over something—it is pretty amazing. We were arguing over whether families making less than $26,000 a year should 

get another $400 worth of tax credit for their children, and you 

would think that would not be a big argument. We were not allowed to even vote on it at first, and then we had to spend a year 

trying to push, and Mr. Rangel, the Chair of the Committee, 

worked very hard on this, and I worked on it. Mr. Rangel was kind 

enough to let this freshman Member from Alabama work with him 

on the issue. It took us a year to make it happen. 

There is something else you may not know. There was a vote in 

the last Congress, and the purpose of the vote was to save money 

to help do some of the things we had to do after Katrina, and you 

all may not know how the Congress saved some of the money. 

There was a decision made to go to 13 million families who were 

on Medicaid, a program for low-income people, it helps them get 

health care, and the Congress went to those 13 million people and 

said, ‘‘You need to pay more money to go to the doctor. You need 

to do a higher co-pay,’’ and it is estimated that 65,000 of those people will now fall off the program because they cannot make the copay. 

Well, in fact, I have got right here a copy of a document related 

to the President’s budget that he submitted just last week, and I 

was looking through the summary that the Budget Committee prepared on what the President wants to do, and I noticed that, on 

pages 10 through 12, there are three pages’ worth of cuts to everything from low-income energy assistance to raising copayments, 

again, for people on Medicaid. 

Later on in this document, it talks about the fact that, with 9 

million children who do not have health insurance, the President 

does not want to put enough money on the table to cover even the 

ones we are already providing coverage for. 

Ms. Bezear, you talked about how much money it costs to go to 

school. There is a program called the ‘‘Perkins Loan’’ that helps a 

66 

lot of families at junior colleges go to school, and the President 

wants to cut out the program all together, and I could go on and 

on and on. There are a lot of—I just do not want to let the institution off the hook. 

I am very proud of all of you for being here, and I certainly want 

to join in all of the nice things that people have said about you, 

but I do not want to let those of us sitting on this dais off the hook. 

I do not want to let this hearing go by without saying to you: 

As for everything that I have described to you, Congress votes on 

it. Congress gets to cast a vote, and I left an important one out. 

Even though there is no one here this directly affects, it appears, 

there was a vote in the Congress about 7 months ago that said that 

American citizens, children who were born in this country—if their 

parents came here illegally, there was a vote that would prevent 

them from getting food stamps any longer, and that just struck me 

as a somewhat bizarre choice because, as you know, if you are born 

here, you are a citizen, and you do not control where you are born, 

and I do not recall a complementary vote to abolish hunger with 

those kids. 

So, I just want to end my time by saying please do not have the 

illusion that these things just happen, that these choices get made. 

They are a function of real live people whom you elect to office, 

casting votes and making decisions and putting money in one pot 

as opposed to another pot, and I know this Chairman and the leadership of this Committee is committed to reversing that direction, 

and it is, in my opinion, high time that we reversed it. 

Thank you. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you. Mr. Stark. 

Mr. STARK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and congratulations on 

your new position, one that I held back in the early seventies, and 

it was a proud time, and I want to thank the panel for joining us 

today and sharing some of your experiences. 

We are going to hear later—you might want to stick around— 

from some people who are going to suggest that you are not really 

poor. They are going to talk about the fact—I will bet all of you 

have a television. Just imagine that. You all have a telephone? 

Why is that? You have a garbage disposal? We did when I was a 

kid. My brother was the garbage disposal. 

How many of you have a dishwasher? We had a dishwasher in 

my home back in the thirties. I was it. So, I know about those expensive things that you can provide people that are supposed to 

suggest that you are not in poverty. 

I hope that we will not be so inhumane in treating people. I just 

want to point out to you—because you have all mentioned education, and we talked a year or 2 ago about the fact that, of all of 

the students who entered high school this past September in the 

United States, across the land, of those children who are not white, 

only half will ever graduate, and that has been going on for a number of years, and tell me, because you are struggling with this, 

what does a youngster—let us say he or she drops out when they 

are about to be a sophomore. 

Maybe they have got eighth grade reading and math skills. What 

do they do? Will this young lady maybe get pregnant and really 

67 

have no way to get an education and support? What does a young 

guy do? 

Mr. Hawkins, what does a young guy do? He drops out of high 

school. He is 15 or 16. What is there for him? 

Mr. HAWKINS. Nothing. Basically, nothing. 

Mr. STARK. Trouble, maybe? 

Mr. HAWKINS. Living on the streets. 

Mr. STARK. Yes. So, we have got a big job ahead of us, and you 

will help us just by reinforcing our commitment to try and do the 

right thing, and thank you so much for taking the time for being 

here. I appreciate it. 

Mr. Noble, I think this Committee and one of its other Subcommittees is going to demand parity for mental health care and 

Medicaid/Medicare and insurance so that we can expand treatment 

for people who need other than acute care treatment, and I hope 

that helps, too. 

Thanks, Mr. Chairman, for a very fascinating panel. 

Mr. WELLER. Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Yes, Mr. Weller. 

Mr. WELLER. Mr. Chairman, my good friend from Alabama, Mr. 

Davis, was sharing some examples of actions by this Congress over 

the last few years, and one statistic I would like to share with 

those on the panel—it maybe something you may not know—is 

today we spend about $600 billion providing needs-based assistance 

to Americans. That is both at the State and Federal level. 

In 1996, when welfare reform was passed into law and passed by 

a Republican Congress, and signed into law by a Democratic President, I considered it a bipartisan accomplishment. The Federal 

Government spent a little over $268 billion in providing assistance 

to needs-based benefits for families. In 2004, we invested $427 billion, so we increased funding over a period of almost 10 years by 

$160 billion in additional help to low-income families on needsbased benefits. So, I thought it was something you may not know 

as well. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you, all of you, for coming. 

As Mr. Stark has said, we started with a panel like this because 

we wanted to hear some real people and hear what people actually 

on the ground deal with. So, thank you all for coming. It is difficult 

to sit and share your personal experiences with the pain that goes 

with it, but it is useful to us to know and for us to know as something to think about when we are working on law. So, thank you 

very much for coming. 

Our next panel is comprised of a number of experts on the whole 

question of poverty. The snow in northern New York made it impossible for one of our people to get here, Dr. Smeeding from Syracuse, but he is replaced by Dr. Burtless from the Brookings Institute. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Please take your seats up here at the 

table, and we will begin. We are facing four votes over in the Congress. It was supposed to start 5 minutes ago, but it has not 

moved, so we hope that we can get started with you, and get as 

much of you done before we have to run off. As you know, today 

is the day we are voting on the Iraq War, which has something to 

68 

say about the—or we are not voting on it. We are going to talk 

about it for a few days but, ultimately, vote about it, and so it has 

made this a little bit difficult. 

Why don’t we start with you, Dr. Burtless. Thank you for filling 

in on such short notice, and the floor is yours for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF GARY BURTLESS, THE BROOKINGS 

INSTITUTION 

Mr. BURTLESS. I am very honored to testify before this Subcommittee. As you said, I am an economist at the Brookings Institution. Tim Smeeding cannot be here, and I am a very imperfect 

substitute for him. Let me just briefly discuss three points that he 

raised in his prepared testimony. 

Where does the United States stand in the world poverty tables, 

both with respect to overall poverty in the country and with respect 

to child poverty? 

Second, what factors help to account for the relative standing of 

the United States in the poverty league standings? 

Finally, what can purposeful public policy do to alleviate measured poverty in a country? Tim here looks specifically at what the 

United Kingdom has done over the last decade. 

Let me pass over details of how poverty ought to be measured 

in an ideal world, and let us just talk about how we can measure 

poverty across countries with the statistics that are available to us. 

Let me say, parenthetically, that these statistics are available to us 

because of the hard work and energy of Tim Smeeding. 

The definition actually available to us measures relative poverty. 

How many people have, after taxes, cash and near cash incomes 

that place them below one-half the median income in a country? 

Median income is measured to adjust for differences in-household 

size, and it reflects the taxes that people have to pay, and it counts 

the cash and near cash benefits that they receive. 

This diagram shows overall poverty under this definition. Poverty is higher in the United States than it is in all but one of the 

other 20 countries in the graph. The only exception is Mexico, 

which is, by a very wide margin, the poorest country of the 21 in 

the table. The United States has a poverty rate overall of about 17 

percent. The average poverty rate of all 21 countries is a little less 

than 11 percent. 

How did we get so far above other advanced countries? The 

United States has an even worse relative performance when we 

look at the child poverty rate. Again, only one of the other 20 countries has a child poverty rate above that in the United States, and 

again, it is Mexico. The average poverty rate among children in all 

21 countries is a little less than 12 percent. In the United States, 

the child poverty rate is about 22 percent. 

Question Number 2 is: What explains the relatively poor performance of the United States in the poverty league tables? Why 

do we have so much more poverty? Tim highlights two factors. One 

is the prevalence of low-paying jobs in the United States. A second 

factor is that the United States spends relatively little on the programs that would directly reduce poverty in working age households and, in particular, in households that contain children. 

69 

This chart shows spending on cash and near cash public programs that provide transfers to non elderly households in these 

countries. It excludes spending on Medicaid and education, but it 

includes near cash benefits, for example, those on food stamps and 

housing assistance. It also includes tax benefits like the earned income credit. 

The United States is the second line from the bottom in this 

chart. Only Mexico spends less as a proportion of its national income. The United States over the era covered by this chart spent 

between about 2.8 percent and 3.8 percent a year, higher during 

recessions, less at the end of long expansions. The other Englishspeaking countries here—Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom—spent about twice as large a share of their national income, 

and Northern European countries spent about 3 times the share of 

national income. 

The spending differences are refleced, as this chart shows, in 

how prevalent poverty is amongst people who are less than 65 

years old in a society. The countries that spend the smallest proportions of their national incomes on these kinds of direct poverty 

alleviation programs also have the highest rates of poverty 

amongst non elderly people in the population. The relationship can 

hardly be surprising. If public programs top up the cash and near 

cash incomes of the unemployed and the working poor, then fewer 

of them will be poor. 

What about a country that takes a very determined stand and 

says, ‘‘Well, let us try to reduce child poverty in any way that we 

know how?’’ Tim points out that the United Kingdom has an experience that sheds light on this question. In about 1997, about a decade ago, Prime Minister Blair and his government committed that 

nation to achieving a dramatic reduction in the British child poverty rate. This chart shows that using a variety of policies, including some that imitated earlier programs in the United States, Britain made great progress. Our earned income credit was imitated 

largely by the British. Britain was able to dramatically reduce the 

prevalence of child poverty so that now it is less than it is here in 

the United States. 

Thank you. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smeeding, as presented by Mr. 

Burtless follows:] 

Statement of Timothy M. Smeeding, Ph.D., Director of the Center for 

Policy Research, Syracuse University 

I. Introduction 

Chairman McDermott and members of this Subcommittee, I thank you for the opportunity to testify before you. I sincerely applaud your willingness to examine the 

issue of poverty in the United States in comparative perspective. I hope my testimony is of great use to those on this panel and others who care about our most economically vulnerable families and disadvantaged children, especially. 

The United States has a long tradition of measuring income poverty and weighing 

the effectiveness, successes, and failures of government policies aimed at poverty reduction. But for the most part, examinations of United States domestic antipoverty 

policy are inherently parochial, for they are based on the experiences of only our 

nation in isolation from the others. The estimation of cross-nationally equivalent 

measures of poverty and the comparison of programs that help reduce poverty, provide a unique opportunity to compare poverty rates and the design and effectiveness 

of American social policy and antipoverty policy with the experiences of other naVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:36 Jun 15, 2007 Jkt 035776 PO 00000 Frm 00073 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 E:\HR\OC\35776A.XXX 35776A
70 

tions. The Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) database, which undergirds this paper, 

contains the information needed to construct comparable poverty measures for more 

than 30 nations. It allows comparisons of the level and trend of poverty and inequality across several nations, along with considerable detail on the sources of market 

incomes and public polices that in large part shape these outcomes. 

In this paper we use cross-national comparisons made possible by the LIS to briefly examine America’s experiences in fighting poverty in the face of substantial and 

rising economic inequality, in a cross-national context. In so doing, we compare the 

effectiveness of United States antipoverty policies to those of similar nations elsewhere in the industrialized world. We attempt to answer the following questions: 

Do other countries have an ‘‘official’’ poverty line in the sense that the United 

States does, or do they define poverty in a sort of de facto sense based on eligibility 

for various government programs? 

How do poverty rates in other countries compare with the United States poverty 

rates? 

What are the big drivers of poverty in the United States compared to other countries, with low wages, low-skill immigrants, and large numbers of single-parent families being the most prominent candidates? 

We believe that there are lessons about antipoverty policy that can be learned 

from cross-national comparisons. While every nation has its own idiosyncratic institutions and polices, reflecting its values, culture, institutions, and history, wide differences in success and failure are evident from the comparisons that follow. And, 

there is evidence that such policies are becoming internationalized in their spread 

and evaluation (Banks, et. al. 2005; Francesconi and van der Klaauw 2007). 

We begin by reviewing international concepts and measures of poverty, as they 

relate to the main measures used in domestic United States discourse. We follow 

with a discussion of the relationship between policy differences and outcome differences among the several countries, and consider the implications of our analysis 

for antipoverty policy in the United States. While all nations value low poverty, high 

levels of economic self-reliance, and equality of opportunity for younger persons, 

they seem to differ dramatically in the extent to which they reach these goals. Most 

nations have remarkable similarities in the sources of national social concern: births 

outside of wedlock and lone parent families; older women living alone; high unemployment; immigration pressures; low wages; and the sustainability of social expenditures in the face of rapid population aging and rising medical care costs. But 

they also exhibit differences in the extent to which working age adults mix economic 

self-reliance (earned incomes), family support, and government support to avoid poverty. And, in such comparisons the United States does not always look very supportive of work or low-income families. 

II. Cross-National Comparisons of Poverty and Inequality: Methodology 

and Measurement 

Who Measures Poverty and How? 

Differing national experiences in social transfer and antipoverty programs provide 

a rich source of information for evaluating the effectiveness of alternative social policies in fighting poverty. While most rich nations share a concern over low incomes, 

poverty measurement began as an Anglo-American social indicator. In fact, ‘‘official’’ 

measures of poverty (or measures of ‘‘low-income’’ status) exist in very few nations. 

Only the United States (U.S. Bureau of the Census 2003b) and the United Kingdom 

(Department of Social Security 1996; Department of Work and Pensions 2005) have 

regular ‘‘official’’ poverty series. Statistics Canada (2004) publishes the number of 

households with incomes below a series of ‘‘low-income cutoffs’’ on an irregular 

basis, as does Australia. 

In Northern Europe and Scandinavia the debate centers instead on the level of 

income at which minimum benefits for social programs should be set and on the 

issue of ‘‘social exclusion’’ (Atkinson, Cantillon, and Marlier 2005). Northern European and Scandinavian nations do not calculate low income or poverty rates. Most 

recognize that their social programs already ensure a low poverty rate under any 

reasonable set of measurement standards (Bjo ̈rklund and Freeman 1997). 

While there is no international consensus on guidelines for measuring poverty, 

international bodies such as the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the 

United Nations Human Development Report (UNHDR), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the European Statistical Office 

(Eurostat), the International Labor Office (ILO), and the Luxembourg Income Study 

(LIS) have published several cross-national studies of the incidence of poverty in recent years. A large subset of these studies is based on LIS data.1

For purposes of international comparisons, poverty is almost always a relative 

concept. A majority of cross-national studies define the poverty threshold as one-half 

71 

of national median income. In this study, we use the 50 percent of median income 

to establish our national poverty lines. We could have selected 30 or 40 percent of 

national median income as our relative poverty threshold because it is closer to the 

ratio of the official United States poverty line to median United States household 

(pre-tax) cash income. This ratio was only 27–28 percent in 2000, as compared to 

50 percent in 1963 (Smeeding 2006; Appendix Table 1). However, we have decided 

to stay with the conventional 50 percent level in most of our analyses. Alternatively, 

the United Kingdom and the European Union have selected a poverty rate of 60 percent of the median income (Eurostat 2000, Atkinson et al. 2002). Previous research 

suggests more or less the same results regardless of the measure chosen (Smeeding 

2006). 

While the United States likes to think of itself using an ‘‘absolute’’ poverty measure, there is no one absolute poverty measure. All poverty measures are, in some 

sense, relative and are chosen to be appropriate for the context in which they are 

used. The World Bank and the United Nations Millennium Development movement 

define poverty in Africa and Latin America using an income threshold of $1 or $2 

per person per day, and in Central and Eastern Europe a threshold of $2 or $3 per 

day. In contrast, the absolute United States poverty line is six to nine times higher 

than these standards and the European poverty line is almost double the United 

States line as a percent of median income. While we do not provide absolute poverty 

comparisons below, they also show the United States as having amongst the highest 

levels of poverty amongst all rich nations (Smeeding, 2006; Rainwater and 

Smeeding, 2004). 

Other Measurement Issues 

Comparisons of poverty across nations with LIS are based on many choices. A 

poverty line, a measure of resources such as (market and disposable) incomes, and 

an equivalence scale to adjust for family size, are all important precursors to accurate cross-national measurement of poverty status. 

• Poverty measurement is based on the broadest income definition that still preserves comparability across nations. The best current definition is disposable 

cash and near cash income (DPI) which includes all types of money income, 

minus direct income and payroll taxes and including all cash and near cash 

transfers, such as food stamps and cash housing allowances, and refundable tax 

credits such as the earned income tax credit (EITC).2,3 We use this income definition in the analyses which follow. 

• For international comparisons of poverty, the ‘‘household’’ is the only comparable income-sharing unit available for almost all nations. While the household is the unit used for aggregating income, the person is the unit of analysis. 

Household income is assumed to be equally shared among individuals within a 

household. Poverty rates are calculated as the percentage of all persons of each 

type who are members of households of each type with incomes below the poverty line. We calculate the poverty rate for all persons and for children (17 and 

under) using this same poverty line. 

• Equivalence scales are used to adjust household income for differences in needs 

related to household size and other factors, such as the ages of household members. In the United States poverty literature, a set of equivalence scales is implicit in the official poverty lines, but these are neither consistent nor robust 

(Citro and Michael 1995). For our cross-national analysis of relative poverty 

rates, however, we use a consistent scale, which is much more commonly used 

in international analyses. After adjusting household incomes to reflect differences in household size, we compare the resulting adjusted incomes to the 

50 percent of median poverty line. The equivalence scale used for this purpose, 

as in many cross-national studies, which include both children and elders, is a 

single parameter scale with a square-root-of-household-size scale factor.4

We do not address either the well-being of poor in terms of hardships, or mobility 

in or out of poverty. Several recent cross-national poverty studies suggest that mobility in and out of poverty is lower in the United States than in almost every other 

rich country (Bradbury, Jenkins, and Micklewright 2001; Goodin et al. 2001). 

III. Data 

The data we use for this analysis are taken from the Luxembourg Income Study 

(LIS) database, which now contains almost 130 household income data files for 30 

nations covering the period 1967 to 2002 (www.lisproject.org). Using this data one 

can analyze both the level and trend in poverty and low incomes for a considerable 

period across a wide range of nations. Because we are computing the level of relative poverty, and real living standards for several major policy relevant groups, we 

72 

have selected 13–21 nations for this paper, each with a recent 1999–2000 LIS database. One can find relative poverty rates for all of the 30 LIS countries just by going 

to the LIS website and looking at the ‘‘key figures’’ at: (http://www.lisproject.org/ 

keyfigures/povertytable.htm). 

IV. Results: Level of Overall and Child Poverty 

Relative poverty rates in 21 nations are given in figures 1 and 2 for all persons 

and for children. The overall poverty rate for all persons using the 50 percent poverty threshold varies from 5.4 percent in Finland to 20.2 percent in Mexico. The 

poverty rate is 17.0 percent in the United States, the second highest of all nations 

and the highest of all rich nations. The average rate of poverty is 10.8 percent 

across the 21 countries (Figure 1). 

Higher overall poverty rates are found as one might expect, in Mexico, but also 

in Anglo-Saxon nations (United States, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and the United 

Kingdom), and southern European nations (Greece, Spain, Italy) with a relatively 

high level of overall inequality. Still, Australian Canadian and British poverty are 

about 12–13 percent and are, therefore, below the United States levels. 

The lowest poverty rates are more common in smaller, well-developed, and highspending welfare states (Sweden, Finland) where they are about 5 or 6 percent. 

Middle level rates are found in major European countries, where social policies provide more generous support to single mothers and working women (through paid 

family leave, for example), and where social assistance minimums are high. For instance, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, and Germany have poverty rates that 

are in the 8 to 9 percent range, while France is at 7 percent. Even the former Soviet 

block nations of Estonia, Poland and Slovenia, and Taiwan have much lower poverty 

rates than does the United States. 

On average, child poverty is a slightly larger problem than is overall poverty in 

these nations, but the cross-national patterns are very similar (Figure 2). After Mexico, the United States child poverty rate is at 21.9 percent compared to the 11.8 percent average over these 21 nations. European child poverty rates are lower and 

Anglo-Saxon rates higher among these nations, but the United States is more than 

4.0 percentage points higher than any other rich nation. 


Insert offset folio 35776A.039
73 

Moreover, note that the story is not one of poor immigrants, as two nations with 

substantially higher fractions of children born to foreigners, Canada and Australia, 

have child poverty rates that are both 14.9 percent, a full 7 percentage points less 

than the United States rate. 

We do not present trends in poverty rates here for any nations, but in many nations though not all, child poverty has risen since 2000. This is most certainly the 

case in the United States but not in the United Kingdom (see Section VI below). 

V. Towards Explanations: Cross-National Spending Patterns, and Relation 

of Spending and Pay to Poverty 

We have seen clearly different patterns of poverty in the Unites States relative 

to other nations. What explains these differences? In short, the explanations are related to two things: the amount of support we give to the poor especially the working poor, and the level of wages paid in the United States compared to other nations. Redistributive social expenditures vary greatly across nations. The available 

evidence indicates that social expenditures (health, education, cash and near cash 

support) as a fraction of total government spending in OECD nations, ranges from 

0.67 in Australia to 0.90 in Denmark and Sweden. That is, 67 to 90 percent of all 

government spending is made up of redistributive cash or in-kind benefits (Osberg, 

et. al. 2004). Thus, the topic of social expenditure is about most of what most governments actually do. 

We present the trend in non-elderly cash and near cash (food, housing) benefits 

for OECD countries back over the past 20 years, using data from the OECD (2004) 

in comparable format in Figure 3. Here 17 OECD nations—all of the major nations 

except for the Central and Eastern Europeans—have been grouped into 6 clusters: 

Scandinavia and Finland (Finland, Norway, Sweden); Northern Europe (Belgium, 

Denmark, Netherlands); Central and Southern Europe (Austria, France Germany, 

Italy, Greece, Luxembourg, Spain); Anglo Saxony (Australia, United Kingdom and 

Canada); the United States and Mexico. 


Insert offset folio 35776A.040
74 

The Scandinavian and Northern Europeans follow similar patterns—high levels of 

spending showing responsiveness to the recession of the early 1990s in Sweden and 

Finland, and a tapering after these events. The Central and Southern Europeans 

and the Anglo-Saxon nations show remarkably similar spending patterns, again 

with expenditures rising in the early 1990s, but overall at a level distinctly below 

that the other two groups. The United States is significantly below all these others 

and, by the late 1990s is spending at a level closer, in terms of a fraction of GDP 

per capita, to Mexico than to the other richer OECD nations. 

These figures illustrate the wide differences that one can find for both levels and 

trends in social spending, using figures that abstract from financing of health care, 

education and retirement for the elderly. They also correspond very closely to the 

measures of money and near-money income poverty used in the analytic literature 

in this area, including that presented above. 

A substantial fraction of the variance in non-elderly cross-national poverty rates 

appears to be accounted for by the cross-national variation in the incidence of low 

pay (Figure 4). 


Insert offset folio 35776A.041
75 

Because the United States has the highest proportion of workers in relatively 

poorly paid jobs,5 it also has the highest poverty rate, even among parents who work 

half time or more (Burtless, Rainwater, and Smeeding 2001; Smeeding 2006). On 

the other hand, other countries that have a significantly lower incidence of low-paid 

employment and also have significantly lower poverty rates than does the United 

States. 

But, the prevalence of low-pay workers is, in fact, not the only reliable predictor 

of poverty rates. While low pay is a good predictor of United States poverty rates, 

and while poorly-educated workers do not do well at keeping their families from 

poverty based on earnings alone, other factors, such as the antipoverty efforts of the 

government, are also important predictors of the poverty rate (Figure 5). Here we 

see that higher social spending reduces poverty. 


Insert offset folio 35776A.042 Insert offset folio 35776A.043
76 

As a result of its low level of spending on social transfers to the non-aged, the 

United States again has a very high poverty rate. Even though social spending in 

general has an inverse correlation with poverty rates, different patterns of social 

spending can produce different effects on national poverty rates. Antipoverty and social insurance programs are in most respects unique to each country. There is no 

one kind of program or set of programs that are conspicuously successful in all countries that use them. Social insurance, universal benefits (such as child allowances), 

and social assistance transfer programs targeted on low-income populations are 

mixed in different ways in different countries. So, too, are minimum wages, worker 

preparation and training programs, work-related benefits (such as childcare and 

family leave), and other social benefits. 

The United States differs from most nations that achieve lower poverty rates because of its emphasis on work and self-reliance for working-age adults, regardless 

of the wages workers must accept or the family situation of those workers. For over 

a decade, United States unemployment has been well below the OECD average, and 

until recently American job growth has been much faster than the OECD average. 

The strong economy coupled with a few specific antipoverty devices (like the expanded EITC) has produced most of the United States overall and child poverty reduction in recent years, though it is decidedly below the effects found in other nations (Smeeding 2005; 2006). Simply put, The United States does not spend enough 

to make up for low levels of pay, and so we end up with a relatively higher poverty 

rate than do other nations. 

VI. A Tale of Two Countries 

While acknowledging that the United States has greater poverty than other industrialized nations, many defenders of American economic and political institutions 

have argued that inequality plays a crucial role in creating incentives for people to 

improve their situations through saving, hard work, and investment in education 

and training Without the powerful signals provided by big disparities in pay and 

incomes, the economy would operate less efficiently and average incomes would 

grow less rapidly. In the long run, poor people might enjoy higher absolute incomes 

in a society where wide income disparities are tolerated than in one where law and 

social convention keep income differentials small (Welch 1999). According to this 

line of argument, wide income disparities may be in the best long-term interest of 

the poor themselves.6 But, of course, there is no evidence that this is true (Burtless 

and Jencks 2003), and indeed there is some good historical evidence that higher social spending produces higher rates of economic growth and higher social well-being 

(Lindert 2004). 

Our lower-income citizens’ ‘‘real’’ incomes are at or below the incomes that most 

poor people receive in other rich countries that have less inequality (Smeeding 2005; 

2006). The supposed efficiency advantages of high inequality have not accrued to 

low-income residents of the United States, at least so far. While the real incomes 

of families with children did rise in the latter 1990s (Blank and Schoeni 2003) they 

fell again after 2000, and most of the gains have been captured by Americans much 

further up the income scale, producing a conspicuously wide gap between the incomes of the nation’s rich and poor children, elders, and adults. 

In recent years, the United Kingdom and especially the United States economies 

have performed, in fact, better than many other economies where income disparities 

are smaller. Employment growth (even since 2001)has been relatively faster, joblessness lower, and economic growth higher than in many other OECD countries where 

public policy and social convention have kept income disparities low. Figure 6 compares child poverty in the United States using the same ‘‘absolute’’ or ‘‘real’’ poverty 

standards—the United States official poverty line (about 38 percent of United States 

median income in 1997) with the United Kingdom poverty line set at 60 percent of 

United Kingdom median income in 1996–1997. 

77 

In the United States we show official Census Bureau poverty estimates that reflect the current official United States income definition. Because United Kingdom 

incomes are about 67 percent of United States incomes in 1996, this turns out to 

be just about the same ?real’ poverty standard.7

We noted earlier that these nations were very near the top ranked nations in 

terms of child poverty (Figure 2). We also note that child poverty in both nations 

began to fall without the help of policy from the mid to the late 1990’s owing mainly 

to the strong wage growth and tight labor markets in both countries (Figure 6). But, 

then the patterns of child poverty beyond 2000 differ completely. 

Why so? In 1997, Prime Minister Blair announced his nation would rid itself of 

high child poverty, and he instituted a wide set of policies to reduce child poverty. 

In 1999, they began to be implemented. By 2000–2001, child poverty in the United 

Kingdom (15 percent) was just about the same as in the United States measured 

against this same ‘real’ resource level. But as we entered the 21st century, and 

when both economies—and especially United States economic growth—turned sour, 

the United Kingdom continued to have policy driven reductions in child poverty 

while the United States poverty decline stopped and even reversed. The poverty rate 

for United Kingdom children has fallen to 11 percent by 2004, while the official 

United States child poverty rate was 17.6 at percent in 2005 according to the United 

States Census estimates. The 2005 estimate for the United Kingdom are not available, but projections show an even lower child poverty rate for 2005 once these figures are released in April of this year 

Five years earlier, these low-income United Kingdom kids were worse off than 

were United States kids in real terms (Smeeding and Rainwater 2004). The reason 

for their improvement is that they have a leader who has set a national goal of improving living standards, and eradicating child poverty in Britain over the next decade; and who has matched his political rhetoric with some large measure of real and 

continuing fiscal effort that has already had an important impact (Waldfogel, et al. 

2006; Francesconi and van der Klaauw 2007). In Britain, Prime Minister Blair has 

spent an extra .9 percent of GDP for low-income families with children since 1999 

(Hills 2003). Nine tenths of a percent of United States GDP is about $120 billion. 

This is substantially more than we now spend on the EITC, food stamps, child-care 

support and TANF combined. The result of this spending in Britain is that child 

poverty rates in 2000 were 45 percent below their 1999 level, while real living 

standards for these children and employment of these mothers also rose (United 

Kingdom, Department of Work and Pensions 2005; Francesconi and van der Klaauw 


Insert offset folio 35776A.044
78 

2007). The real consumption levels of these children also increased dramatically 

over this period (Waldfogel, et al. 2006). 

VII. Summary and Conclusions 

As long as the United States relies almost exclusively on the job market to generate incomes for working-age families, changes in the wage distribution that affect 

the earnings of less skilled workers will inevitably have a big negative effect on poverty among children and prime-age adults. Welfare reform has pushed many lowincome women into the labor market and they have stayed there as TANF roles continue to fall. Even with the $25.4 billion spent on TANF today, less than $10 billion 

is in the form of cash assistance; the rest is now in the form of child care, transportation assistance, training and other services (Pear 2003). While the switch from 

cash to services has undoubtedly helped account for higher earnings among low-income parents, it has not helped move many of them from poverty. In fact, serious 

gaps still exist, especially in the childcare arena and in family leave policy 

Labor markets alone cannot reduce poverty because not all of the poor can be expected to ‘‘earn’’ their way out of poverty. Single parents with young children, disabled workers, and the unskilled all face significant challenges earning an adequate 

income, no matter how much they work. The relationship between antipoverty 

spending and poverty rates is of course complicated, but the evidence discussed 

above is very suggestive. United States poverty rates, especially amongst children, 

are high when compared with those in other industrialized countries. Yet United 

States economic performance has also been good compared with that in most other 

rich countries. As the British have demonstrated, carefully crafted public policy can 

certainly reduce poverty if the policy effort is made. 

Of course, the high direct and indirect costs of our child poverty are now widely 

recognized in public debate (Holzer, et al. 2007). The wisdom of expanding programs 

targeted at children and poor families depends on one’s values and subjective views 

about the economic, political, and moral tradeoffs of poverty alleviation. It is hard 

to argue that the United States cannot afford to do more to help the poor; particularly those that also help low-skilled workers. But is has not done so, so far (Shapiro 

and Parrott 2003; Holzer, et al. 2007). If the nation is to be successful in reducing 

poverty, it will need to do a better job of combining work and benefits targeted to 

low-wage workers in low-income families (e.g., see Ellwood 2000; Danziger, Heflin, 

and Corcoran 2000). There is already evidence that such programs produce better 

outcomes for kids (Clark-Kauffman, Duncan, and Morris 2003; Francesconi and van 

der Klaauw 2007; Waldfogel, et al. 2006). 

Given the political disposition of the American public, a 5 percent overall relative 

poverty rate is not a plausible goal. A gradual reduction in the overall poverty rate 

from 17 percent overall and 21 percent for children, to a level of 10–12 percent using 

the 50 percent of median standard is certainly feasible, however. Although this rate 

would represent a considerable achievement by the standards of the United States, 

it is worth remembering that a 12 percent overall poverty rate is higher than the 

average overall and average child poverty rates in the 21 nations examined here, 

and would put us just below the poverty levels of our Irish, Australian, British, and 

Canadian counterparts. 

Endnotes 

1See for UNICEF (2005), Bradbury and Ja ̈ntti (2005) for the United Nations (1999); for the 

OECD, see Fo ̈rster and Pellizzari (2005); for the European Union, see Eurostat (2000) and, for 

LIS, Ja ̈ntti and Danziger (2000), Smeeding (2005, 2006), and Rainwater and Smeeding (2004). 2See Atkinson, Rainwater, and Smeeding (1995) and Canberra Group (2001) for more on this 

income definition and its robustness across nations. Note that the use of this ‘‘LIS’’ disposable 

income concept is not unique to LIS alone. Eurostat and OECD have independently made comparisons of income poverty and inequality across nations using identical or very similar measures of net disposable income. 3This income definition differs from the Census income definition used in most poverty studies. Still, the internationally comparable measure of income does not subtract work-related expenses or medical care spending. In particular, there is no account for provision of or costs of 

childcare. The EITC and similar refundable tax credits and nearcash benefits such as food 

stamps and cash housing allowances are included in this income measure, however, as are direct 

taxes paid. 4Formally, adjusted disposable income (ADPI) is equal to unadjusted household income (DPI) 

divided by household size (S) raised to an exponential value (e), ADPI = DPI/Se. We assume the 

value of e is 0.5. To determine whether a household is poor under the relative poverty measure, 

we compare its ADPI to 50 percent of the national median ADPI. National median ADPI is calculated by converting all incomes into ADPI and then taking the median of this ‘‘adjusted’’ income distribution. The equivalence scale that we employ is robust, especially when comparing 

families of different size and structure (e.g., elders and children). See Atkinson, Rainwater, and 

Smeeding (1995) for detailed and exhaustive documentation of these sensitivities. 5There are no figures for low pay in the other nation studied here, especially none for Mexico. 

79 

6 A lucid presentation and analysis of this viewpoint can be found in Okun (1975). See also 

Welch (1999). 7 Notice that these estimates are entirely consistent with those presented in Figure 2 earlier 

for the United Kingdom 1999 and United States 2000, using the LIS data. The difference is that 

we can go beyond the LIS to later years now using these comparable figures fro these two nations alone. 

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f 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Our next witness is Mr. Berube. Did 

I pronounce it right. 

Mr. BERUBE. ‘‘Bah-rue-bee.’’ 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Berube. 

STATEMENT OF ALAN BERUBE, FELLOW, METROPOLITAN 

POLICY PROGRAM, THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION 

Mr. BERUBE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and other Members of 

the Committee. My name is Alan Berube. I am a fellow also at the 

Brookings Institution, and I am Research Director for the Metropolitan Policy Program there. I am going to make three brief points 

in my oral testimony. 

First, a significant fraction of poor families in America live in environments of extreme concentrated poverty. Second, at the same 

time, the locus of U.S. poor and low-income populations is shifting 

toward the suburbs, and third, I think public policies can confront 

specific challenges to economic mobility that arise from this new 

geography of poverty. 

So, to begin, the Federal Government’s definition of ‘‘poverty,’’ as 

you all know, measures a family’s resources against an assessment 

of its basic needs. For most Americans, though, I think the idea of 

poverty also elicits visions of inner cities, Appalachia, the Mississippi Delta, American Indian reservations. That is to say that 

poverty describes places as well as people, leading researchers to 

find concentrated poverty as the proportion of poor people who live 

in very poor neighborhoods, those where at least 40 percent of all 

individuals are below the poverty line, and in the words of one researcher, the measure identifies the poor who not only have to cope 

with their own poverty, but also that of those around them. 

Nationwide, about 1 in 10 poor individuals in 2000 lived in communities of such extreme poverty, and though that rate fell during 

the nineties, concentrated poverty remains widespread today as the 

example New Orleans made clear. Indeed, 48 of 50 States and 46 

of the Nation’s 50 largest cities contained at least one area of concentrated poverty in 2000. In Fresno, California, for instance, nearVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:36 Jun 15, 2007 Jkt 035776 PO 00000 Frm 00084 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\35776A.XXX 35776A
81 

ly half of the poor residents of that city lived in extremely poor 

neighborhoods. 

Researchers have identified a series of problems arising from 

concentrated poverty, including worker disconnection from jobs and 

job networks, higher priced and lower quality local goods and services, local schools that are at greater risk for failure, negative 

health outcomes, and elevated costs for local governments to create 

municipal fiscal burdens. 

While these highly distressed urban and rural areas remain a 

significant feature of the U.S. poverty landscape worthy of our continued attention, recent decades have also seen a steady shift of the 

Nation’s low-income populations toward suburbia. 

In a recent study that we conducted at Brookings, it found that, 

for the first time in 2005, a majority of poor residents in the Nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas actually lived in the suburbs. 

In fact, many cities such as Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, and 

Washington, D.C. all have fewer residents living in poverty than 

their suburbs do. 

I know some might consider the suburban poor to have escaped 

the problems associated with inner city and remote rural poverty. 

Evidence suggests that they, too, face other unique challenges. 

First, many suburban, low-income families remain stuck on what 

some people call the ‘‘wrong side of the region’’—to the south, areas 

like Atlanta, to the east in regions like Washington, D.C.—and 

they face housing, education and transportation challenges not dissimilar from their inner city counterparts. 

Second, social services providers in most regions are still concentrated in central cities. Even smaller, often faith-based, suburban providers struggle to serve growing numbers of local families 

in need, and third, low-income workers in the suburbs are often 

forced to double and triple up in single-family housing due to a lack 

of affordable rental units there. 

In recent months, the issue of economic mobility in America has 

drawn new attention. I think that focus has been fueled by estimates that, for instance, only 20, perhaps 25 percent of children 

who were born into the bottom fifth of the Nation’s income distribution will achieve at least a median income as adults. Most 

studies and evaluations conclude that neighborhoods, themselves, 

communities, have smaller effects on the economic mobility of the 

poor than do family characteristics. 

So, I think, therefore, public policies that foster healthy family 

environments and more equitable opportunities for children regardless of where they live, such as early education or labor market 

supports for disconnected adults, deserve primary consideration. 

Yet, I believe public policy can also confront particular challenges 

of place that may blunt the impact of more universal investments 

and mobility. 

First, targeted wage boosts can expand low-wage workers’ neighborhood options, and an enhanced earned income tax credit, for instance, could make more housing in more neighborhoods affordable 

to working families, especially if a portion of the credit were delivered throughout the year. Second, programs that provide temporary support and training to low-income families, such as those 

82 

funded under TANF and the Workforce Investment Act, should 

serve workers and employers across city and suburban lines. 

I think Congress could examine information sharing and incentives within these programs with an eye toward growing more 

high-performing regional institutions, workforce intermediaries— 

Project QUEST in San Antonio, WIRE–Net in Cleveland are a couple of examples. 

Third, participation gaps could be narrowed in key supports like 

the earned income and child tax credits, food stamps, subsidized 

health insurance especially for the suburban working poor where 

those gaps may be greater. Congress could require Federal agencies 

to more closely track participation in these programs, strengthen 

incentives to achieve higher participation rates and provide modest 

supports in nonprofits, such as the Center for Economic Progress 

in Chicago, that facilitate program involvement for working families. 

So, in closing, I would like to thank the Subcommittee for the opportunity to testify, and I look forward to your questions. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Berube follows:] 

Statement of Alan Berube, Fellow, Metropolitan Policy Program, 

The Brookings Institution 

Mr. Chairman and other members of the Committee, thank you for the invitation 

to testify today on the changing geography of poverty in the United States and its 

implications for economic mobility and well-being, the subject of recent research we 

have conducted at the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. 

In this testimony, I will make three points regarding poverty, geography, and mobility in the United States. 

• A significant fraction of poor families in America live in environments of extreme, concentrated poverty. 

• At the same time, the locus of U.S. poor and low-income populations is shifting 

toward the suburbs, along with Americans in general. 

• Each geographic setting provides both challenges and opportunities for promoting the economic mobility of low-income families, with attendant implications for public policy. 

The enduring challenge of concentrated poverty 

The federal government’s definition of poverty measures a family’s resources 

against an assessment of its basic needs. For most Americans, though, the image 

of poverty entails more than these individual or family circumstances. It also elicits 

visions of inner cities, Appalachia, and American Indian reservations. That is, poverty describes places as well as people. What is more, poverty implies something 

about the local conditions faced by many poor individuals and families in these 

places: unsafe neighborhoods, failing schools, substandard housing, inadequate private services, and diminished community hope. 

Concentrated poverty represents the confluence of these two ideas of poverty in 

America. It concerns the tendency, in many corners of our country, for poor populations to be clustered into very poor communities. While Hurricane Katrina and its 

aftermath in the city of New Orleans motivated much of the recent focus on concentrated poverty and its effects, many poor Americans face the double burden of 

family and community distress in a wide variety of places, both urban and rural. 

As defined by Paul Jargowsky of the University of Texas-Dallas, the statistical 

measure of concentrated poverty expresses the proportion of poor people who live 

in neighborhoods where at least 40 percent of all individuals live below the poverty 

line. In his words, the measure identifies ‘‘the poor who not only have to cope with 

their own poverty, but also that of those around them.’’ 

Nationwide, about one in ten individuals below the poverty line in 2000 lived in 

communities of such extreme poverty. That rate fell during the 1990s, after roughly 

83 

1Paul Jargowsky, ‘‘Stunning Progress, Hidden Problems: The Dramatic Decline of Concentrated Poverty in the 1990s’’ (Washington: Brookings Institution, 2003). 2See, e.g., John Kasarda, ‘‘Urban Industrial Transformation and the Underclass.’’ Annals of 

the American Academy of Political and Social Science 501 (1989): 26—47. 3See, e.g., Kathryn Nelson, ‘‘Racial Segregation, Mobility, and Poverty Concentrations.’’ Paper 

presented at the Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America (1991). 4See, e.g., Douglas Massey and Mitchell Eggers, ‘‘The Ecology of Inequality: Minorities and 

the Concentration of Poverty, 1970–1980.’’ American Journal of Sociology 95 (1990): 1153–1189; 

Rolf Pendall, Robert Puentes, and Jonathan Martin, ‘‘From Traditional to Reformed: A Review 

of Land Use Regulations in the Nation’s 50 Largest Metropolitan Areas’’ (Washington: Brookings 

Institution, 2006); Margery Austin Turner, Susan J. Popkin, and G. Thomas Kingsley, ‘‘Distressed Public Housing: What It Costs to Do Nothing’’ (Washington: Urban Institute, 2005); 

Glenn Canner, ‘‘Redlining: Research and Federal Legislative Response.’’ Staff Studies 121 

(Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 1982). 5See, e.g., Audrey Singer, ‘‘The Rise of New Immigrant Gateways’’ (Washington: Brookings 

Institution, 2004). 

6See, e.g., William Julius Wilson, When Work Disappears (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996). 7Keith Ihlanfeldt and Daniel Sjoquist, ‘‘The Spatial Mismatch Hypothesis: A Review of Recent 

Studies and their Implications for Welfare Reform.’’ Housing Policy Debate 9(4)(1998): 849–92; 

Matt Fellowes, ‘‘From Poverty, Opportunity: Putting the Market to Work for Lower-Income Families’’ (Washington: Brookings Institution, 2006). 

doubling between 1970 and 1990.1 The strong economy in the latter half of the decade, coupled with policy reforms that broke up the most severe concentrations of 

distressed inner-city housing, appear to have weakened the link between poverty 

and place in most major metropolitan areas. 

As the example of New Orleans made clear, however, a significant fraction of poor 

families—especially poor minorities—continue to live in areas of extreme poverty. 

Moreover, these pockets of distress can be found in every corner of the country. Indeed, 46 of the nation’s 50 largest cities contained at least one neighborhood that 

met the 40-percent concentrated poverty threshold. At the moment, my program at 

Brookings is collaborating with the Federal Reserve System to study the causes and 

effects of concentrated poverty across America, in communities as varied as Rochester, NY; Miami, FL; the Mississippi Delta; McKinley County, NM; and Fresno, 

CA. Fresno was the only U.S. city with a higher degree of concentrated poverty than 

New Orleans before the storm, with almost half of its poor residents living in extreme-poverty neighborhoods. 

The forces that gave rise to these communities are numerous, diverse, and wellstudied, including: 

• The long-term economic decline of former urban manufacturing centers 2 and 

rural areas that depended on agriculture and extraction industries; 

• Suburbanization and out-migration of middle-class households from cities in the 

1970s and 1980s; 3

• Housing, lending, and land-use policies that reinforced patterns of racial and 

ethnic segregation; 4

• New waves of lower-skilled immigrants and refugees to the U.S. in the latter 

part of the 20th century; 5 and 

• Secular trends in family formation that resulted in more children growing up 

in single-parent, single-earner households, especially in inner-city neighborhoods.6

The consequences of growing up and living in environments of extreme poverty 

may vary as widely as the factors themselves that gave rise to these communities. 

Nonetheless, researchers have identified a series of problems evident in most areas 

of high poverty that result from their concentrated economic disadvantage, and that 

affect not only the inhabitants of these neighborhoods, but their surrounding areas 

as well: 

• Concentrations of lower-income households and less-skilled workers lead the private sector to disinvest in these communities. In turn, fewer mainstream businesses compete for their purchases, raising prices for some basic goods and 

services. The disinvestment may also widen the ‘‘spatial mismatch’’ between 

workers in these neighborhoods and growing employment centers.7

• Low levels of labor force attachment may sever these areas from the informal networks that help workers find good jobs and advance in their careers. Some argue 

that these high levels of joblessness change community norms about work, so 

84 

8Philip Kasinitz and Jan Rosenberg, ‘‘Missing the Connection: Social Isolation and Employment on the Brooklyn Waterfront.’’ Social Problems 43(2)(1996): 180–196; Wilson, When Work 

Disappears. 9 Brian Jacob, ‘‘The Challenges of Staffing Urban Schools.’’ The Future of Children, forthcoming 2007; Ruth Lupton, ‘‘Schools in Disadvantaged Areas: Recognizing Context and Raising 

Quality’’ (London: LSE Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion, 2004). 10 Ingrid Ellen and Margery Austin Turner, ‘‘Does Neighborhood Matter? Assessing Recent 

Evidence.’’ Housing Policy Debate 8(4)(1997): 833–866; Robert Sampson and William J. Wilson, 

‘‘Toward a Theory of Race, Crime, and Urban Inequality.’’ In J. Hagan and R. Peterson, eds., 

Crime and Inequality (Stanford University Press, 1995). 11 Roberto Quercia and Lisa Bates, ‘‘The Neglect of America’s Housing: Consequences and Policy Responses.’’ Working Paper 2002–02 (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2002); 

Deborah Cohen et al., ‘‘Neighborhood Physical Conditions and Health.’’ Journal of American 

Public Health 93(3)(2003): 467–71. 12Scott Smith and Kyle Crowder, ‘‘Neighborhood Effects on Family Formation: Concentrated 

Poverty and Beyond.’’ American Sociological Review 64 (1999): 113–132. 13 Janet Pack, ‘‘Poverty and Urban Public Expenditures.’’ Urban Studies 35(11)(1998): 1995– 

2019; Pascale Joassart-Marcelli, Jennifer Wolch, and Juliet Musso, ‘‘The Fiscal Consequences of 

Concentrated Poverty in a Metropolitan Region.’’ The Annals of the Association of American 

Geographers 95(2)(2005): 336–356. 14 U.S. Census Bureau, Historical Poverty Tables, Table 8: Poverty of People, by Residence. 15 Alan Berube and Elizabeth Kneebone, ‘‘Two Steps Back: City and Suburban Poverty Trends, 

1999–2005’’ (Washington: Brookings Institution, 2006). 

that children under-invest in the education and training necessary for labor 

market success.8

• Even with the expanded school choice options available today, children who live 

in extremely poor urban neighborhoods generally attend neighborhood schools 

where nearly all the students are poor. This places students at greater risk for 

failure, as expressed by low standardized test results, grade retention, and high 

drop-out rates. These schools struggle to attract the best personnel, endure high 

rates of student mobility that frustrate classroom stability, and must operate 

additional systems to cope with disorder and the social welfare of their students.9

• High-poverty areas generally exhibit higher crime rates, especially violent crime. 

In these neighborhoods, the social penalties for criminal activity may be lower, 

and reduced access to jobs and quality schools may lower the opportunity costs 

of crime.10

• People in areas of extreme poverty experience negative health outcomes at much 

higher rates. This owes partly to the stress of being poor and marginalized, and 

partly to living in an environment with dilapidated housing and high crime. Researchers have associated the incidence of depression, asthma, diabetes, and 

heart ailments with living in these neighborhoods.11 Others have found that 

these neighborhoods may serve to increase the risk of premarital childbearing 

among young female residents, and decrease their rates of marriage.12

• As research from municipal finance experts has shown, concentrations of poverty 

generate high costs for local governments. These higher costs appear in areas 

such as welfare, health, and public safety, and can divert resources from the 

provision of other public services and raise tax burdens on local businesses and 

non-poor residents.13

The suburbanization of poverty 

In keeping with these statistics on concentrated poverty, urban and rural visions 

of poverty in America tend to dominate popular perceptions and media accounts. 

Such viewpoints were well-supported in 1970, when central cities and rural areas 

contained roughly four in five poor Americans.14

As described above, these areas remain a significant feature of the U.S. poverty 

landscape, especially the most distressed portions. Yet recent decades have seen a 

steady shift of the nation’s overall low-income population towards the dominant geography of American life today: suburbia. 

The findings from a recent study we conducted at the Brookings Institution amplify this shift.15 Focused on the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas (home to 

two-thirds of U.S. population), the study found that between 1999 and 2005 the poverty rate in these areas rose overall, with similar increases in central cities and suburbs. In 2005, central-city residents remained about twice as likely as their suburban counterparts to live below the poverty line. 

As to the location of the overall poor population, however, the study found that 

in 2005, 52 percent of metropolitan residents living below the poverty line were 

found in suburbs, versus 48 percent in central cities. This signaled a notable tipping 

of poor populations towards the suburbs since 1999, when a bare majority of the 

metropolitan poor lived in cities. 

85 

16Suburbs of major metropolitan areas grew by roughly 24 percent from 1990 to 2004, compared to 12 percent for their central cities. See William H. Frey, ‘‘Metro America in the New 

Century: Metropolitan and Central City Demographic Shifts Since 2000’’ (Washington: Brookings Institution, 2005). 17See Singer, ‘‘The Rise of New Immigrant Gateways.’’ 18 Rob Puentes and David Warren, ‘‘One-Fifth of the Nation: America’s First Suburbs in Transition’’ (Washington: Brookings Institution, 2006). 19 About 20 percent of the poor, and 12 percent of the near-poor (with incomes between 100 

and 200 percent of the poverty line) live in households without access to an automobile. Alan 

Berube and Steven Raphael, ‘‘Access to Cars in New Orleans’’ (Washington: Brookings Institution, 2005). 20Scott Allard, ‘‘Access to Social Services: The Changing Urban Geography of Poverty and Social Services Provision’’ (Washington: Brookings Institution, 2004). 

None of these findings discounts the continuing incidence of poverty in smaller 

cities, towns, and rural areas. But nationwide today, a plurality of poor Americans 

live in suburbs. And it certainly challenges conventional notions of poverty as solely 

an urban issue to find that cities like Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, and Washington, 

D.C. all have fewer residents living below the poverty line than their suburbs do. 

This ‘‘tipping’’ did not occur overnight, of course, and is rooted in several broader 

changes in American society and metropolitan economies. Among the chief factors 

are: 

• Population continues to suburbanize. Over the past 15 years, suburbs of America’s major metropolitan areas have grown roughly twice as fast as their central 

cities.16 The sheer scale and pace of suburban growth has absorbed a broader 

economic cross-section of the nation’s population. 

• Employment is suburbanizing. Not surprisingly, jobs—especially low-paying 

jobs—have followed people to the suburbs. In 2002, more than half of all employment in metropolitan areas was located at least 10 miles from the downtown. Lower-wage industries like retail, hospitality, and personal services account for the bulk of job growth in many fast-growing suburbs. 

• Immigrants are suburbanizing. In longstanding immigrant gateways like Boston, Chicago, and New York, newcomers to the United States most often started 

in central-city neighborhoods with their compatriots, eventually graduating to 

suburbia as they achieved middle-class status. Today, immigrant populations 

are growing most rapidly in Sunbelt metro areas without a real history of immigration, like Atlanta, Charlotte, and Dallas. In these regions, lower-skilled newcomers are skipping the city altogether for jobs and residences in booming suburban areas.17

• Municipal distress is suburbanizing. Finally, in a number of older metropolitan 

areas, particularly those in the Northeast and Midwest, slow job growth, aging 

housing and infrastructure, and inner-city problems have produced growing lowincome populations in their ‘‘first suburbs.’’ Along many dimensions, these 

places today look more urban than suburban.18

As a newer phenomenon, suburban poverty and its effects have received much 

less attention from the research community. In some respects, the suburban poor 

might be considered to have ‘‘made it,’’ escaping or avoiding altogether the problems 

associated with inner-city or remote-rural poverty. 

Nonetheless, initial evidence suggests a few unique challenges associated with 

having a low income in the suburbs. 

First, a low-income family’s move from the city to the suburbs does not always 

involve moving up on indicators of neighborhood quality. Many major metropolitan 

areas today see high-income households and higher-wage employment concentrate 

on one side of the region, while lower-income housing, limited job opportunities, and 

fiscal distress gather on the other side. These axes—from north to south in regions 

like Atlanta and Chicago, and from east to west in regions like St. Louis and Washington, DC—do not respect city/suburban boundaries. In this way, suburban low-income families stuck on the wrong side of the region can face similar challenges as 

their inner-city counterparts finding quality housing, decent schools for their children, and competitively-priced local goods and services. In particular, limited access 

to public transportation in the suburbs, or even reliable private transportation, may 

constrain their employment and child-care opportunities.19

Second, suburban locations may impede families’ access to the services and supports that help them weather temporary income losses. Research by Scott Allard at 

Brown University shows that social services providers remain concentrated in central-city neighborhoods, lagging the movement of important parts of their potential 

client base into the suburbs.20 Recent media coverage of suburban poverty increases 

86 

21See, e.g., Diane Suchetka, ‘‘Poverty Jumps in Suburbs of Cleveland.’’ The Plain Dealer, December 7, 2006; Peg Tyre and Matthew Phillips, ‘‘Poor Among Plenty.’’ Newsweek, February 12, 

2007. 22Pendall, Puentes, and Martin, ‘‘From Traditional to Reformed.’’ 23See, e.g., Audrey Singer, ‘‘Reforming Immigration Policy’’ (Washington: Brookings Institution, forthcoming 2007). 24 UK Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, ‘‘The Impact of Overcrowding on Health and Education: A Review of the Evidence and Literature.’’ Housing Research Summary 210 (2004). 25See the ‘‘Class Matters’’ series at www.nytimes.com/classmatters. The Times also reports 

that of the 400 Americans identified as the country’s richest in 2005 by Forbes magazine, the 

majority—255—were not the inheritors of significant wealth. Nina Munk, ‘‘Don’t Blink. You’ll 

Miss the 258th–Richest American.’’ The New York Times, September 25, 2005. 26Still, the researchers find a higher intergenerational partial earnings correlation in the U.S. 

(0.289) than in Britain (0.271). 27 Chul-In Lee and Gary Solon, ‘‘Trends in Intergenerational Income Mobility.’’ NBER Working Paper 12007 (January 2006); Tom Hertz, ‘‘Trends in the Intergenerational Elasticity of Family Income in the United States.’’ Industrial Relations 46(1)(2007): 22–50. 28Katherine Bradbury and Jane Katz, ‘‘Women’s Labor Market Involvement and Family Income Mobility When Marriages End.’’ New England Economic Review Q4 (2002): 41–74. 29 Christopher Jencks and Laura Tach, ‘‘Would Equal Opportunity Mean More Mobility?’’ In 

S. Morgan, D. Grusky, and G. Fields, eds., Mobility and Inequality: Frontiers of Research in Sociology and Economics. Stanford University Press, 2006. 30One study finds a statistically significant but not strong correlation in eventual educational 

attainment between children who grew up in the same neighborhood. Gary Solon, Marianne E. 

Page, and Greg J. Duncan, ‘‘Correlations Between Neighboring Children in Their Subsequent 

Educational Attainment.’’ Review of Economics and Statistics 82(3)(2000): 383–392. 

has highlighted the stress placed on smaller, often faith-based providers in these 

communities from trying to serve burgeoning numbers of low-income families.21

These access issues loom especially large for suburban areas in the Midwest and 

South where recent job losses have created pressing needs among formerly middleincome workers and families. 

Third, whereas employment opportunities may be more plentiful for the working 

poor in fast-growing suburbs, appropriate housing is often scarce. Though these 

communities employ large numbers of low-wage workers, single-family owner-occupied housing, mostly for middle- and upper-income families, predominates. Exclusionary zoning laws in many suburban communities have limited the development 

of affordable rental housing there.22 As a result, families are doubling and tripling 

up in order to afford single-family housing, and confronting community opposition 

in the process.23 Research suggests a link between such overcrowded housing conditions and negative health outcomes for children and adults, and possibly children’s 

educational performance as well.24

Geography and efforts to promote economic mobility 

A key focus of this hearing, and indeed social policy in general, concerns the prospects for economic mobility among poor and low-income families in the United 

States. On this question, Americans continue to express their faith in ours as a society of opportunity, with 80 percent of those polled in a recent survey agreeing that: 

‘‘. . . it’s still possible to start out poor in this country, work hard, and become 

rich.’’ 25

Yet recent research has called into question how well the United States lives up 

to this reputation. For instance, a recent study by researchers at the London School 

of Economics finds a far stronger relationship between fathers’ and sons’ earnings 

in the United States than in several northern European countries, Canada, and 

even stereotypically class-bound Britain.26 U.S. researchers’ findings generally suggest that over the past 25 years, a child born into a low-income family had about 

a 20- to 25-percent chance of earning above median income as an adult, and a lessthan-5-percent chance of moving into the highest fifth of the income distribution.27

Within generations as well, evidence points to low and possibly declining rates of 

upward mobility. One study finds that of families who started in the bottom fifth 

of the income distribution in 1988, more than half remained there in 1998, and 

fewer than one-quarter managed to achieve at least middle-income status by the 

end of the decade.28

As one recent paper has argued, however, evidence of low economic mobility does 

not, in itself, establish a case for nor guide interventions to help low-income families 

proceed up the economic ladder.29 Indeed, evidence on why economic status is relatively fixed across and within generations is critical for designing effective policies 

to ensure more equitable opportunities, especially for the poor. 

What role, then, might the geography of poverty and economic disadvantage play 

in shaping prospects for economic and social mobility? Few research studies examine this exact question.30 In general, most studies reinforce the conclusion of one 

87 

31 Ellen and Turner, ‘‘Does Neighborhood Matter?’’ p. 854. 32See generally, Jeffrey R. Kling, Jeffrey B. Liebman, and Lawrence F. Katz, ‘‘Experimental 

Analysis of Neighborhood Effects.’’ Econometrica 75(1)(2007): 83–119. 33For an overview of this argument, see Xavier de Souza Briggs, ‘‘Politics and Policy: Changing the Geography of Opportunity.’’ In The Geography of Opportunity: Race and Housing Choice 

in Metropolitan America (Washington: Brookings Institution, 2005). 34 National Low Income Housing Coalition, Out of Reach 2006. The ‘‘housing wage’’ in major 

metropolitan areas like San Francisco, Boston, and Washington was estimated to be far higher 

than the national average. 35Michael Stegman, Walter Davis, and Roberto Quercia, ‘‘Tax Policy as Housing Policy: The 

EITC’s Potential to Make Housing More Affordable for Working Families’’ (Washington: Brookings Institution, 2003). 36See, e.g., Bruce Katz and Margery Austin Turner, ‘‘Rethinking U.S. Rental Housing Policy’’ 

(Washington: Brookings Institution, forthcoming 2007). 

seminal review of the ‘‘neighborhood effects’’ literature: ‘‘Although the effects of 

neighborhood environment are found to be significant in many studies, they are consistently much smaller than the effects of family characteristics.’’31

The Moving to Opportunity (MTO) program offers some recent research insights 

on the possible impacts of concentrated poverty. MTO was a five-city, federally-funded experiment to assist families living in high-poverty public housing to move to private rental housing in low-poverty neighborhoods, and to examine the effects on 

those families. Parents offered the opportunity to move to low-income neighborhoods 

experienced significant improvements in mental health, and teenage girls experienced health, educational, and behavioral benefits, compared to their counterparts 

who were not offered the opportunity to move (and who, for the most part, remained 

in public housing). Conversely, the experiment did not produce significant employment and earnings gains for adults, or consistent educational performance gains for 

all children, versus what the comparison group experienced.32 The MTO findings 

highlight important negative influences that high-poverty environments may exert 

on their inhabitants, while bounding the economic gains that we might expect over 

the short- and medium-term from interventions to improve neighborhood conditions 

for the very poorest inner-city families. 

The evidence thus implies that to improve economic and social mobility, public 

policy should first and foremost aim to provide incentives and supports that foster 

healthy family environments and more equitable opportunities for children regardless of where they live. In this respect, greater federal support for early education 

targeted to low-income children, policies designed to improve the labor market potential of disconnected young adults, and reforms to expand the reach and effectiveness of temporary supports like unemployment insurance, are well-founded and 

would have disproportionate benefits for low-income communities as well. 

At the same time, I believe that existing and expanded efforts can support economic mobility by confronting particular issues of place that could blunt the impact 

of more universal investments in low-income families. While many of these do not 

fall within the strict jurisdiction of the Subcommittee, they merit mention here as 

possible components of a broader anti-poverty strategy, and could include initiatives 

designed to: 

• Expand neighborhood choice. The availability and cost of appropriate housing 

dictate the neighborhood opportunities available to lower-income families, and 

thus circumscribe in important ways their educational, employment, and health 

outcomes.33 According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a full- time worker needs to earn over $16 per hour in order to afford the average rent 

for a modest, two-bedroom house or apartment.34 Already, the federal Earned 

Income Tax Credit (EITC), by providing a substantial boost to the wages of lowincome working families, reduces housing-cost burdens by an estimated 18 percent.35 Further targeted increases to the EITC, perhaps delivered throughout 

the year to help families meet monthly housing costs, could greatly expand 

quality neighborhood and housing options for families while maintaining the 

credit’s focus on work. To ensure that the growing suburban poor have access 

to appropriate housing in quality neighborhoods, the Low Income Housing Tax 

Credit (LIHTC)—the nation’s largest affordable housing production program— 

could be recalibrated to deliver more affordable units in opportunity-rich 

areas.36

• Serve families region-wide. Existing programs to provide temporary support and 

training to low-income families, such as those funded under the TANF block 

grant and the Workforce Investment Act, must now serve a more geographically 

dispersed population than ever before. The growth of suburban poverty renders 

critical strategies that engage low-income families throughout metropolitan 

areas, and that link workers to employment opportunities on a region-wide 

88 

37See, e.g., Harry J. Holzer, ‘‘Encouraging Job Advancement Among Low-Wage Workers: A 

New Approach’’ (Washington: Brookings Institution, 2004). 38One study finds evidence suggestive of lower participation rates in the EITC among immigrants in less-dense suburban communities than among their counterparts in central-city immigrant enclaves. Alan Berube, ‘‘Tienes EITC? A Study of the Earned Income Tax Credit in Immigrant Communities’’ (Washington: Brookings Institution, 2005). 39The National Community Tax Coalition acts as an umbrella organization for hundreds of 

organizations that conduct outreach and provide free tax assistance to low-income families each 

year. See www.tax-coalition.org 

basis. In some states, regional workforce intermediaries have mounted a successful track record by identifying employer needs, often within selected industry growth sectors, and connecting less-skilled workers to the training needed 

to secure these jobs. Organizations like Project QUEST in San Antonio, 

WireNet in Cleveland, and the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership work 

across jurisdictional lines to meet employer and worker needs, in recognition of 

the metropolitan nature of today’s economy.37 Congress might consider an expanded role for information and incentives within these existing programs to 

seed the creation of more high-performing regional workforce intermediaries. • Promote participation in existing work supports. Finally, expanded efforts to 

connect low-wage workers and their families to existing in-work benefits for 

which they are eligible may address place-specific barriers as well. The Earned 

Income and Child Tax Credits, Food Stamps and other nutritional supports, and 

subsidized health insurance all crucially help to narrow the gap between wages 

and costs of living for low-income families. Yet informational deficits and geographical barriers—the trip to a downtown welfare office, for instance—may depress participation in these programs, especially among the suburban working 

poor.38 A series of Congressional actions could help ensure that more eligible 

families access these programs. First, appropriate federal agencies could be required to more closely and frequently track participation rates in these programs, including variability across states and metropolitan areas. Second, federal incentives to achieve higher participation among eligible families could be 

strengthened, at a minimum, to achieve parity with incentives designed to reduce program error. Third, Congress could consider direct support for a growing 

nationwide network of nonprofit organizations that conduct outreach and assist 

families in applying for tax credits and a growing array of other work supports.39

In closing, I would like to thank the Subcommittee for the opportunity to testify 

today and applaud its work to probe the role of federal policy in promoting greater 

economic and social mobility for low-income families. Keeping in mind the evolving 

relationship between poverty and place, particularly as it affects Americans who live 

in areas of extreme local poverty, as well as the growing number of suburban poor, 

provides critical context and guidance for policy strategies to ensure greater equality 

of opportunity. I look forward to assisting the Subcommittee in this regard, and to 

answering your questions. 

f 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. We are going to have to stop and go 

and vote. I am sorry. We will recess for, hopefully, about 30 minutes. So, I hope that the witnesses can stay. We would love to talk 

to you again when we come back. We will be back probably around 

12:15 or 12:20, something like that. 

So, we will recess for the moment. Thank you. 

[Recess.] 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. The hearing will come to order. 

We have to be out of here in 28 minutes. So, Ms. Blackwell, you 

are on. 

STATEMENT OF ANGELA GLOVER BLACKWELL, ESQUIRE, 

FOUNDER AND CEO, POLICYLINK 

Ms. BLACKWELL. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and 

Committee Members. I am Angela Glover Blackwell, the CEO of 

PolicyLink, a national research and action institute that works 

89 

very closely with local partners, finding solutions to poverty and inequity and inequality in America. 

For the past 18 months, we have been working in New Orleans, 

and we have been working there because our organization is known 

for thinking both about how to develop places so that they are attractive and work well and how to think about the people at the 

same time, the integration of the people and the place strategies. 

The work in New Orleans has really affirmed for us that so much 

of what we worry about in terms of poverty and opportunity was 

unveiled there both in terms of the suffering regarding poverty and 

the kind of solutions that we ought to be thinking about. As we 

witnessed as a nation what happened when Katrina hit New Orleans, we were struck by the fact that people were so sick, so isolated, so vulnerable, and so poor. I think the American people were 

shocked and ashamed of what they saw, and if you take it apart, 

you can see something very similar to that in cities all across 

America, because the relationship between the isolation and the 

absence of transportation that caused people to be so vulnerable 

when that hurricane hit is the same thing that causes people to be 

so vulnerable to poverty in other communities where they are isolated from jobs and the other supports that they need. 

What we saw in New Orleans was that where you live impacts 

opportunity enormously, including how healthy you are and how 

long you will live, and as we think about the importance of place 

in the context of poverty, what has been interesting, as was presented in the testimony right before, is that not only does place 

matter, but it is surprising the places where it is beginning to matter even more—older suburbs, suburban communities, where poverty is growing. 

As you think about that assertion that where you live impacts 

opportunity, what it is referring to is that it is absolutely your address that determines whether or not you get to go to a good school. 

Some communities have excellent schools available. Others have 

terrible schools. Your address determines whether or not you live 

in close proximity to jobs, as do many people who live in suburban 

areas with job centers. Your address affects your access to opportunity if you live in an urban area, an older suburb, a declining city 

with no real jobs around. Where you live determines whether or 

not you are going to have access to a job that may be distant in 

terms of whether or not there is any public transportation to be 

able to get you to jobs. 

One of the things that was interesting when you think about 

New Orleans is so many people asked, ‘‘Well, why didn’t people just 

get out?’’ Well, not only was there not a good public transportation 

system, but of those people who were living in extreme poverty 

areas, 54 percent of them did not have cars. 63 percent of the elderly who were poor did not have cars. So, this notion of not having 

a car and not having a reliable public transit system absolutely 

makes a difference in terms of access to opportunity. 

In thinking about strategies, I was interested in hearing the conversation with the first panel. Certainly, the earned income tax 

credit supports the families that are poor. Access to health insurance and high-quality care, access to child care are all important, 

and they are the basics, a living wage that allows families to be 

90 

able to move out of poverty, but we also need to think about broader strategies. 

As to the whole notion of transportation, we have noticed that we 

need to have transportation systems that do not just go from city 

to suburb, because now, sometimes people need to go from suburb 

to suburb, and there is a wonderful program called Job Access and 

Reverse Commute (JARC) that does just that. This program has 

worked in many different States and many different communities. 

In fiscal year 2003, JARC funded 101 programs in 35 States, and 

it is a perfect example of taking the reality of how where you live 

impacts opportunity and putting a program in place that allows 

people to be able to access jobs. If where you live impacts opportunity, we certainly want to connect people from poor communities 

to opportunity, but it is also important for low-income to people live 

in opportunity-rich communities. We really have not done enough 

with the low-income housing tax credit program to encourage 

States to put that affordable housing near good schools, near good 

transit and the other amenities that are so important for moving 

forward. Also, as we think about how to be able to make sure that 

the housing choice voucher program really works to connect people 

to opportunity, a program in Illinois—the housing opportunity tax 

incentive—encourages landlords in opportunity-rich communities— 

those with less than a 10 percent poverty rate—to rent to lower income people so they can live in communities with good schools and 

jobs, et cetera. 

One last thing I want to mention is that, too often, we only deal 

with the poverty issue through poverty programs. Our infrastructure investments, which we are talking about more and more—certainly, New Orleans has brought that into sharp relief. When we 

are spending dollars on infrastructure—levies, bridges, transportation—we can do two things. We can make communities where 

poor people live more economically competitive by investing in the 

infrastructure, but we can also make sure that job training programs and other supports connect low-income people to the jobs 

that are generated through infrastructure investments. We have to 

think expansively about poverty, not just poverty programs but all 

programs where we are spending government dollars that allow everybody to benefit. 

Thank you. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Blackwell follows:] 

Statement of Angela Glover Blackwell, Esq., Founder and CEO, PolicyLink 

Good Morning. I’m Angela Glover Blackwell, founder and CEO of PolicyLink. 

PolicyLink is a national nonprofit research and action institute that helps local and 

national organizations use policy to achieve economic and social equity. We are particularly concerned about the needs of people of color and people in low-income communities. I also co-chair a task force on poverty that is part of the Center for American Progress’s National Initiative to End Poverty. I thank you all for this opportunity to speak about ending poverty by creating economic opportunity. 

Just about 18 months ago, one of the worst disasters in our nation’s history unfolded quite literally in black and white: it was clear not only to the victims, but 

to all of us watching television footage that those hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina 

were black and poor. The American people were shocked by the picture of raw poverty and isolation that emerged in the storm’s aftermath. 

Yet poverty in New Orleans and other Gulf Coast communities existed long before 

Katrina. In 2005, nearly one in four New Orleans residents lived in poverty. Though 

91 

1 Based on figures from the 2005 American Community Survey, online at http:// 

www.census.gov. 2 Alan Berube and Bruce Katz, Katrina’s Window: Confronting Concentrated Poverty Across 

America, (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2005). 3 Ibid. 

4 Ibid. 

5Federal Transit Administration, FTA Fiscal Year 2003 Apportionments, Allocations and Program Information: Notice of Supplemental Information, Changes and Corrections, retrieved from 

http://www.fta.dot.gov/grant_programs/4696_ENG_HTML.htm. 

this figure is troublesome enough, it belies the racial disparities of the city’s poverty 

(10 percent of whites were living in poverty compared with 30 percent of African 

Americans) and the reality that much of this poverty was concentrated.1 According 

to a Brookings Institution analysis of 2000 Census figures, over 37 percent of poor 

New Orleans residents (and over 42 percent of poor African American residents) 

lived in ‘‘extreme poverty’’ neighborhoods—communities where more than 40 percent 

of residents were living below the poverty line,2 effectively isolated from good 

schools, decent jobs, and the economic and social networks that facilitate upward 

mobility. Imagine trying to support a family of four on $17,050, the federal poverty 

line in 2000. Now consider that for poor families in New Orleans’ extreme poverty 

neighborhoods, the average household income was $9,640 below that threshold.3

We are facing a crisis of income inequality, and though post-hurricane images cast 

New Orleans as some supreme, unparalleled failure of the American dream, concentrated poverty is in fact pervasive nationwide. New Orleans had the second-highest concentrated poverty rate among large U.S. cities, but number one was Fresno, 

California, and many of our other cities—Atlanta, Cleveland, Philadelphia—were 

not far behind.4

My message is straightforward and elegant in its simplicity: The means exist to 

put an end to such stark levels of poverty in America. What we need is the will 

to do so. While poverty in America is indeed entrenched, there are many models 

available for providing economic opportunity to low-income people. Our existing 

safety net, which includes welfare, Social Security, unemployment, and similar programs, is an essential baseline that we must preserve and expand to ensure that 

everyone has the opportunity to participate and prosper, to support themselves, 

their families, and their communities. At the same time, we must build on these 

income supports with policies that fight poverty by investing in housing, transportation, and infrastructure. 

Our nation’s legacy of poverty is long and complex, but one thing is clear: place 

matters. Where we live affects our access to transportation, jobs, good schools, affordable housing, resources like banks and parks, and enriching amenities like cultural institutions. Increasingly, place matters not just in our inner cities, but in the 

very suburbs that half a century ago began as idyllic enclaves of American middleclass life. The poverty rate in cities remains twice that in suburbs—and it is rising 

in nearly half of large cities and one third of suburbs—but the number of poor people in suburbs is now greater than in cities. This increase in poverty is especially 

challenging for suburbs that (perhaps unlike inner cities accustomed to struggling 

with poverty) lack social service infrastructure, public transportation to connect residents to jobs, and strong community organizing networks. At the same time, these 

suburbs have an opportunity to study the successes and challenges of urban poverty 

programs, and use the lessons of hindsight to craft more strategic policies. 

The rise of suburban poverty also means that poverty is not simply an urban concern: poverty is regional and requires regional solutions. Many of the traditional 

models no longer apply. Jobs, for example, have increasingly moved from central 

city business districts to suburbs, even to distant ‘‘exurbs.’’ Commuting patterns 

that were once predominantly suburb to city now include ‘‘reverse commutes’’ from 

city to suburb and, for a growing suburban population of new immigrants and lowincome residents, suburb to suburb. 

One promising strategy for connecting low-income residents to regional job opportunities is Job Access and Reverse Commute (JARC), which provides grant money 

to states for programs that help welfare recipients and low-income workers access 

jobs and employment services. JARC has been widely and successfully tested in diverse communities across the United States. In fiscal year 2003, JARC funded 101 

programs in 35 states, serving approximately 73,000 employment sites.5 So many 

residents are traveling from city to suburb, suburb to city or suburb to suburb for 

work and educational opportunities that we need to expand our approach to transit 

from building single ‘‘lines’’ to creating a comprehensive transit ‘‘web’’ to serve the 

region. The federal government must commit to scaling up programs like JARC to 

reach the millions of poor residents who are cut off from job opportunities due to 

92 

6See Radhika Fox and Sarah Treuhaft, Shared Prosperity, Stronger Regions: An Agenda for 

Revitalizing America’s Older Core Cities (Oakland, CA: PolicyLink, 2005). 7 In Rebecca Flournoy, Healthy Food, Healthy Communities: Improving Access and Opportunities Through Food Retailing (Oakland, CA: PolicyLink, 2005). 

lack of transportation and the spatial mismatch between jobs and affordable housing. 

Along with helping poor residents commute to jobs in neighborhoods throughout 

their region, we must strengthen programs and policies that help those living in 

concentrated poverty move into mixed-income communities already rich in jobs and 

other amenities. America’s affordable housing crisis offers another opportunity for 

the federal government to partner with states to reduce poverty and promote economic mobility. There is tremendous potential—often untapped—for the Low Income 

Housing Tax Credit program to build affordable housing in opportunity-rich communities. The federal government should take an active role in encouraging states to 

use LIHTC funds to site affordable housing in communities that provide economic 

opportunity for low-income families, rather than clustering LIHTC projects in highpoverty areas. 

Additional tax credits could be offered to states willing to create models such as 

the Housing Opportunity Tax Incentive program in Illinois, which encourages landlords in non-poverty communities to accept Housing Choice Voucher program (formerly Section 8) tenants. Landlords in designated ‘‘housing opportunity areas’’—that 

is, communities with high job growth, a strong economic base, and a poverty rate 

of less than 10 percent—can receive a tax credit for renting to an HCV tenant. To 

avoid creating new concentrations of poverty, a maximum of two units or 20 percent 

of all units in any single property can qualify for the credit.6 A National Housing 

Trust Fund could do even more to increase the federal government’s commitment 

to opportunity through housing. 

Transit oriented development is another way for low-income people to live in communities of opportunity. TODs are typically high-density, mixed-use, pedestrianfriendly developments located within a quarter mile of a transit station. By locating 

a mix of shops, housing, and office space around transit hubs, TOD reduces dependence on cars and promotes vibrant, walkable communities. When TOD is combined 

with affordable housing, low-income residents are connected to jobs, transit, and decent affordable housing. The federal government can support the creation of pools 

of tax credits as an incentive to TOD creation. 

Planners, policymakers, and public health officials are realizing that health, too, 

is impacted by where one lives—and has a symbiotic relationship with poverty. Ill 

health affects one’s ability to earn a living, yet low-income neighborhoods with poor 

housing and environmental conditions and few resources further exacerbate health 

problems. Communities of opportunities, on the other hand, promote good health 

through clean air, neighborhood supermarkets that offer healthy food choices, and 

safe streets and parks where residents can walk, exercise, and play. We know there 

is an explosion in obesity rates in the country and we know that obesity is a factor 

in many life-threatening diseases. But consider how few poor neighborhoods have 

access to supermarkets, farmers markets with fresh produce, or any options for purchasing groceries other than corner stores that primarily stock canned goods high 

in salt and sugar. 

One study found that middle and upper-middle income communities in Los Angeles County have 2.3 times as many supermarkets as low-income communities. The 

same study also reported that predominantly white communities have 3.2 times the 

supermarkets of predominantly black communities and 1.7 times those of predominantly Latino communities. Policies that attract supermarkets to underserved areas 

promote physical health by expanding fresh food choices and economic health by offering job opportunities.7

Ending poverty also requires that we invest infrastructure dollars in a way that 

benefit creates housing, transportation, and job opportunities for low-income residents. Few people give much thought to infrastructure until a sinkhole opens up, 

track work interrupts daily commutes, or water mains break. Yet, infrastructure is 

the skeletal support of communities and regions—and all across America infrastructure is aging and in need of maintenance, upgrades, and new construction. Too 

often, poor people bear the brunt of solutions to infrastructure problems. Where are 

new schools built? Is more money spent on highways and less on public transit? 

Where are dollars allocated for upkeep of parks? Who benefits from infrastructure 

projects? Who pays? Who decides? 

Infrastructure investments that are made where low-income people live can help 

those communities become economically competitive. The process itself of building 

or maintaining infrastructure creates jobs. Transportation and telecommunications 

93 

8 Harry J. Holzer, The Economic Costs of Poverty in the United States: Subsequent Effects of 

Children Growing Up Poor (Washington, DC: Center for American Progress, 2007). 

are infrastructure investments that can connect low-income communities and communities of color to jobs and resources throughout the region. But we must be intentional about maximizing the job creation potential of infrastructure investments 

through local hiring and job training programs with the potential to bring poor people into the workforce. 

The rebuilding of West Oakland, California, after 1989’s Loma Prieta earthquake 

is an example of how the right kind of infrastructure investment and decision making can reshape the economic and social outcomes of a community. As a result of 

dedicated community organizing, a freeway in West Oakland was not rebuilt along 

the corridor that had so badly divided that neighborhood and choked it with vehicle 

emissions. Instead it was rerouted through industrial land in the adjacent Port of 

Oakland. Furthermore, groundbreaking agreements were established to promote 

local hiring and contracting on the construction of the new road. 

Poverty is multidimensional. The causes and the effects of poverty are myriad, but 

the solutions are multidemensional and when done right, multi-beneficial. For example, investing in the construction of a new hospital in a low-income community— 

when the project is tied to job training and local hiring priorities—delivers immediate construction jobs, eventual health services jobs, and long-term communitybased healthcare. Creating tax credits or other incentives for affordable housing in 

mixed-income communities may bring poor families closer to job opportunities, and 

also offer their children the chance to attend high-quality, resource-rich public 

schools. A recent study from the Center on American Progress notes that although 

the typical argument is a moral one—reducing poverty is fair and just—there is, in 

fact an economic imperative to address childhood poverty.8 Childhood poverty results in adverse economic effects for the entire nation. The costs in lost productivity 

and economic output, and in increases in crime and health expenditures are ones 

we shouldn’t have to pay, and won’t if we seize this moment to finally invest the 

resources necessary to create true communities of opportunity—and offer everyone 

the possibility to participate and prosper in America. 

f 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Mr. Rector. 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT RECTOR, SENIOR POLICY ANALYST, 

THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION 

Mr. RECTOR. Yes. I thank you so much for the opportunity to 

be here and speak today. 

I am going to present a somewhat different perspective on poverty. The first data I am going to go through comes from Government surveys from Department of Housing and Urban Development and from the Energy Department, from the Agriculture Department. 

If we were to take all of the 37 million poor people in the United 

States and kind of go to the median household, according to these 

surveys, ordinary people, when they hear the word ‘‘poverty,’’ are 

thinking about malnutrition or a lack of housing, perhaps lacking 

clothes for your kids to wear—that is when you are surveying 

them—but in fact, the typical American defined as ‘‘poor’’ by the 

Government has a car, has air conditioning, has a refrigerator, has 

a stove, has a clothes washer/dryer, has a microwave, has two color 

televisions, has cable or satellite TV, a VCR, a DVD, and a stereo. 

Overall, his home is in good repair, according to HUD, and is not 

overcrowded. If you ask him, he will say that, during the previous 

year, he was able to obtain medical care for his family whenever 

he needed it, and by his own report, his family is not hungry and 

has not been hungry in the last 6 months and that he has had sufficient funds to meet all of his essential family needs. Now, there 

94 

is a group at the bottom of the poverty population that would answer negative to some of those questions, but this is sort of the typical poor person in the United States. 

I will go through some numbers here very quickly. Very interestingly, 82 percent of poor Americans have air conditioning. I grew 

up in the South. We could not afford air conditioning when I was 

a boy. We treated it as a luxury. Over here, I think the most interesting one is close to two-thirds of all poor Americans in the United 

States have either cable or satellite TV. I am not saying that these 

people do not have to struggle to make ends meet, but they are also 

very far away from extreme deprivation as sometimes represented 

as their condition. 

Very interestingly, if you look at the housing of American poor 

people, we find that they have more housing space per square foot 

per person than does the average European, not poor Europeans, 

but the average person in Western Europe. They have more housing space than does that individual. Only about 5 percent of poor 

people are overcrowded with less than one room per person. That 

is the normal definition for ‘‘crowding.’’ 

Now, this is a very interesting chart. This is protein, and you can 

take any other nutriment you wanted to, but the little horizontal 

line is the recommended daily allowance. We have got poor kids 

and non poor kids and protein consumption. In almost every case, 

the protein consumption is twice the recommended daily allowance, 

and there is virtually no difference between the very affluent and 

the poor with respect to protein consumption. This is a measure of 

stuntedness. This is low-income. Whether you are low for height, 

there is none in our country. 

Just move forward. Typically, in a typical month, 1 child in 400 

in the United States skips one or more meals because the family 

lacks funds to buy food. That is regrettable, but it is only 1 child 

in 400. 

Now, if I can move forward a little bit more, this is the total expenditure on health, education and cash welfare in the United 

States and other countries according to the research of Tim 

Smeeding, who was to be here this morning, and he finds that total 

welfare benefits per household with children in the United States 

are actually higher than in any other nation in the world. Very interestingly, he, himself, said he was staggered by that piece of information. 

If I could just jump forward a bit more, it is important to recognize that 26 percent of all poor children in the United States are 

the children of immigrants, and close to 12 percent of all poor children are children of illegal immigrant parents. Over the last 20 

years or so, we have imported 11 million high school dropouts from 

abroad, and they have made a staggering contribution to the poverty levels in this country. About 40 percent of those individuals 

live in the United States and are poor as they live here. We will 

be unable to reduce poverty in the United States if we continue to 

have those record levels of very low-skill immigration, which we 

have had in the recent past. 

If we were to look at domestic-born individuals what we find are 

the major causes of poverty are a lack of work and a lack of marriage. If, in each poor family with children, a single parent family, 

95 

1 Comparison of the average expenditure per person of the lowest quintile in 2001 with the 

middle quintile in 1973. Sources: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Survey: Integrated Diary and Interview Survey Data, 1972–73, Bulletin No. 

1992, released in 1979, and U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer 

Expenditures in 2001, Report No. 966, April 2003. Figures adjusted for inflation by the personal 

consumption expenditure index. 

if the mother were married to the father of that child, according 

to the data from Fragile Families, 75 percent of those children 

would be immediately raised out of poverty by marriage. Also, the 

other major factor is that, although poor families do work, they 

work only about 800 hours a year, all right? They are working, but 

they are not working full time/full year. 

Our calculations using Census Bureau data say, if you took those 

poor families with children and raised the work level up to one 

adult working full time/full year, about 75 percent of those children 

would be raised out of poverty immediately. 

I think that both work and marriage are things where there is 

a potential consensus where we can all agree that those would 

have very strong anti poverty effects without undo expansion to the 

welfare system and without costly expansions of welfare, and those 

are the areas that I would suggest this Committee focus on as 

probably the most productive ways for reducing poverty in the future. 

Thank you so much. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rector follows:] 

Statement of Robert Rector, Senior Policy Analyst, The Heritage 

Foundation 

My name is Robert Rector. I am a Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. The views I express in this testimony are my own, and should not be construed as representing any official position of The Heritage Foundation. 

Poverty is an important and emotional issue. Last year, the Census Bureau released its annual report on poverty in the United States declaring that there were 

37 million poor persons living in this country in 2005, roughly the same level as 

the preceding year. To understand poverty in America, it is important to look behind these numbers—to look at the actual living conditions of the individuals the 

government deems to be poor. 

For most Americans, the word ‘‘poverty’’ suggests destitution: an inability to provide a family with nutritious food, clothing, and reasonable shelter. But only a small 

number of the 35 million persons classified as ‘‘poor’’ by the Census Bureau fit that 

description. While real material hardship certainly does occur, it is limited in scope 

and severity. Most of America’s ‘‘poor’’ live in material conditions that would be 

judged as comfortable or well-off just a few generations ago. Today, the expenditures 

per person of the lowest-income one-fifth (or quintile) of households equal those of 

the median American household in the early 1970s, after adjusting for inflation.1

The following are facts about persons defined as ‘‘poor’’ by the Census Bureau, 

taken from various government reports: 

• Forty-three percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The 

average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a 

three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio. 

• Eighty-two percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 35 

years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning. 

• Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have 

more than two rooms per person. 

• The average poor American has more living space than the average individual 

living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. 

(These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those 

classified as poor.) 

• Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or 

more cars. 

96 

2 Irwin Garfinkel, Lee Rainwater, and Timothy Smeeding, ‘‘A Re-examinaiton of Welfare 

States and Inequality in Rich Nations: How In-Kind Transfers and Indirect Taxes Change the 

Story,’’ Journal of Policy Analysis, and Management, Volume 25, No. 4, 2006. A more detailed 

discussion of this issue is presented later in the text. 

• Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own 

two or more color televisions. 

• Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception. 

• Seventy-three percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and 

a more than a third have an automatic dishwasher. 

Overall, the typical American defined as poor by the government has a car, air 

conditioning, a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave. 

He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, 

and a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His home is in good repair and is 

not overcrowded. By his own report, his family is not hungry and he had sufficient 

funds in the past year to meet his family’s essential needs. While this individual’s 

life is not opulent, it is equally far from the popular images of dire poverty conveyed 

by the press, liberal activists, and politicians. 

As a group, America’s poor are far from being chronically undernourished. The average consumption of protein, vitamins, and minerals is virtually the same for poor 

and middle-class children and, in most cases, is well above recommended norms. 

Poor children actually consume more meat than do higher-income children and have 

average protein intakes 100 percent above recommended levels. Most poor children 

today are, in fact, supernourished and grow up to be, on average, one inch taller 

and 10 pounds heavier that the GIs who stormed the beaches of Normandy in World 

War II. 

While the poor are generally well-nourished, some poor families do experience 

hunger, meaning a temporary discomfort due to food shortages. According to the 

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), 13 percent of poor families and 2.6 percent 

of poor children experience hunger at some point during the year. In most cases, 

their hunger is short-term. Eighty-nine percent of the poor report their families 

have ‘‘enough’’ food to eat, while only 2 percent say they ‘‘often’’ do not have enough 

to eat. 

Of course, the living conditions of the average poor American should not be taken 

as representing all the poor. There is actually a wide range in living conditions 

among the poor. For example, over a quarter of poor households have cell phones 

and telephone answering machines, but, at the other extreme, approximately onetenth have no phone at all. While the majority of poor households do not experience 

significant material problems, roughly a third do experience at least one problem 

such as overcrowding, temporary hunger, or difficulty getting medical care. 

While it is often argued that the U.S. devotes far fewer resources to social welfare 

spending than other rich nations, the facts show otherwise. Per household, social 

welfare benefits for families with children (including cash and near cash benefits, 

education, and health care) are higher in the United States than in any other nation. Further, economic inequality, as measured by the ratio of economic resources 

available to the least affluent decile compared to the median household, is not appreciably greater in the U.S. than most other rich nations once health care and education spending are included.2

The good news is that remaining poverty can readily be reduced further, particularly among children. There are two main reasons that American children are poor: 

Their parents don’t work much, and fathers are absent from the home. 

In good economic times or bad, the typical poor family with children is supported 

by only 800 hours of work during a year: That amounts to 16 hours of work per 

week. If work in each family were raised to 2,000 hours per year—the equivalent 

of one adult working 40 hours per week throughout the year—nearly 75 percent of 

poor children would be lifted out of official poverty. 

Father absence is another major cause of child poverty. Nearly two-thirds of poor 

children reside in single-parent homes; each year, an additional 1.3 million children 

are born out of wedlock. If poor mothers married the fathers of their children, almost three-quarters would immediately be lifted out of poverty. 

While work and marriage are steady ladders out of poverty, the welfare system 

perversely remains hostile to both. Major programs such as food stamps, public 

housing, and Medicaid continue to reward idleness and penalize marriage. If welfare 

could be turned around to encourage work and marriage, remaining poverty would 

drop quickly. 

97 

3 Robert Rector, ‘‘Importing Poverty: Immigration and Poverty in the United States,’’ Heritage 

Special Report, SR9., October 25, 2006. 4See Campaign for Human Development, Poverty Pulse, January 2002, at www.usccb.org/ 

cchd/povertyusa/povpulse.htm. Interestingly, only about 1 percent of those surveyed regarded 

poverty in the terms the government does: as having an income below a specified level. 5The Census Bureau defines an individual as poor if his or her household income falls below 

certain specified income thresholds. These thresholds vary by family size. In 2002, a family of 

four was deemed poor if their annual income fell below $18,556; a family of three was deemed 

poor if annual income was below $14,702. There are a number of problems with the Census Bureau’s poverty figures: Census undercounts income, ignores assets accumulated in prior years, 

and disregards non-cash welfare such as food stamps and public housing in its official count of 

income. However, the most important problem with Census figures is that, even if a family’s 

income falls below the official poverty thresholds, the family’s actual living conditions are likely 

to be far higher than the image most Americans have in mind when they hear the word ‘‘poverty.’’ 6 U.S. Department of Commerce and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 

American Housing Survey for the United States: 2001; U.S Department of Energy, Housing 

Characteristics, 2001, Appliances Tables, at www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/consumption. 

Finally, it is important to note the important role immigration plays in increasing 

poverty in the United States. Over the last twenty years, the U.S. has admitted an 

unprecedented stream of low skill immigrants, with over 11 million high school drop 

outs coming to reside in the U.S. both legally and illegally. This mass influx of low 

skill immigrants has led to dramatic a dramatic increase in the number of poor persons in the nation. Today, more than one in poor child in four in the U.S. is the 

child of first generation immigrant parents. Some 12 percent of poor children in the 

U.S. are the children of illegal immigrant parents. The U.S. will be unable to make 

further progress against poverty as long as this flood of low skill immigration continues.3

What is Poverty? 

For most Americans, the word ‘‘poverty’’ suggests destitution: an inability to provide a family with nutritious food, clothing, and reasonable shelter. For example, 

the ‘‘Poverty Pulse’’ poll taken by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development 

in 2002 asked the general public the question: ‘‘How would you describe being poor 

in the U.S.?’’ The overwhelming majority of responses focused on homelessness, hunger or not being able to eat properly, and not being able to meet basic needs.4

But if poverty means lacking nutritious food, adequate warm housing, and clothing for a family, relatively few of the 37 million people identified as being ‘‘in poverty’’ by the Census Bureau could be characterized as poor.5 While material hardship does exist in the United States, it is quite restricted in scope and severity. The 

average ‘‘poor’’ person, as defined by the government, has a living standard far higher that the public imagines. 

Ownership of Property and Amenities Among the Poor 

Table 1 shows the ownership of property and consumer durables among poor 

households. The data are taken from the American Housing Survey for 2001, conducted by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Census 

Bureau, and the Residential Energy Consumption Survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy.6

98 

7 U.S Department of Commerce and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 

American Housing Survey for the United States: 2001, Tables 3–1, 3–14. 8 U.S. Department of Commerce and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 

American Housing Survey for the United States: 2001, p. 42. 

As the table shows, some 43 percent of poor households own their own home. The 

typical home owned by the poor is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths. 

It has a garage or carport and a porch or patio and is located on a half-acre lot. 

The house was constructed in 1967 and is in good repair. The median value of 

homes owned by poor households was $86,600 in 2001 or 70 percent of the median 

value of all homes owned in the United States.7

Some 73 percent of poor households own a car or truck; nearly a third own two 

or more cars or trucks. Over eighty percent have air conditioning; by contrast, 35 

years ago, only 36 percent of the general U.S. population had air conditioning. Nearly three-quarters of poor households own microwaves; a third have automatic dishwashers. 

Poor households are well-equipped with modern entertainment technology. It 

should come as no surprise that nearly all (97 percent) of poor households have color 

TVs, but more than half actually own two or more color televisions. One-quarter 

own large-screen televisions, 78 percent have a VCR or DVD player, and almost 

two-thirds have cable or satellite TV reception. Some 58 percent own a stereo. More 

than a third have telephone answering machines, while a quarter have personal 

computers. While these numbers do not suggest lives of luxury, they are notably different from conventional images of poverty. 

Housing Conditions 

A similar disparity between popular conceptions and reality applies to the housing 

conditions of the poor. Most poor Americans live in houses or apartments that are 

relatively spacious and in good repair. As Chart 1 shows, 54 percent of poor households live in single-family homes, either unattached single dwellings or attached 

units such as townhouses. Another 36.4 percent live in apartments, and 9.6 percent 

live in mobile homes.8


Insert offset folio 35776A.045
99 

9 Ibid., p. 46. 10 Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives (New York: Dover Press, 1971), pp. 6, 41, 59. 

Housing Space 

Both the overall U.S. population and the poor in America live, in general, in very 

spacious housing. As Table 2 shows, 70 percent of all U.S. households have two or 

more rooms per tenant. Among the poor, this figure is 68 percent. 

Crowding is quite rare; only 2.5 percent of all households and 5.7 percent of poor 

households are crowded with more than one person per room.9 By contrast, social 

reformer Jacob Riis, writing on tenement living conditions around 1890 in New York 

City, described crowded families living with four or five persons per room and some 

20 square feet of living space per person.10

Housing space can also be measured by the number of square feet per person. The 

Residential Energy Consumption survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy shows that Americans have an average of 721 square feet of living space per 


Insert offset folio 35776A.046 Insert offset folio 35776A.047
100 

11 U.S. Department of Energy, Housing Characteristics 1993, 1995, pp. 46, 47. The figures in 

the text refer to total living space, including both heated and non-heated living space. 12 United Nations Centre for Human Settlements and the World Bank, The Housing Indicators Program, Vol. II: Indicator Tables (New York: United Nations, 1993), Table 5. 13See Katha Pollitt, ‘‘Poverty: Fudging the Numbers,’’ The Nation, November 2, 1998. Pollitt 

argues that it is misleading to compare the living space of poor Americans nationwide to that 

of average citizens in major cities in other nations, since European cities, in particular, have 

small housing units that are not representative of their entire nations. However, the author of 

the United Nations Housing Indicators report asserts that, in most cases, the average housing 

size in major cities can be taken as roughly representative of the nation as a whole. A comparison of the data in Table 4 and Appendix Table A would appear to confirm this. 

person. Poor Americans have 439 square feet.11 Reasonably comparable international square-footage data are provided by the Housing Indicator Program of the 

United Nations Center for Human Settlements, which surveyed housing conditions 

in major cities in 54 different nations. This survey showed the United States to have 

by far the most spacious housing units, with 50 percent to 100 percent more square 

footage per capita than city dwellers in other industrialized nations.12

America’s poor compare favorably with the general population of other nations in 

square footage of living space. The average poor American has more square footage 

of living space than does the average person living in London, Paris, Vienna, and 

Munich. Poor Americans have nearly three times the living space of average urban 

citizens in middle-income countries such as Mexico and Turkey. Poor American 

households have seven times more housing space per person than the general urban 

population of very-low-income countries such as India and China. (See Appendix 

Table A for more detailed information.) 

Some critics have argued that the comparisons in Table 3 are misleading.13 These 

critics claim that U.S. housing in general cannot be compared to housing in specific 

European cities such as Paris or London because housing in these cities is unusually 

small and does not represent the European housing stock overall. To assess the validity of this argument, Table 4 presents national housing data for 15 West European countries. These data represent the entire national housing stock in each of 

the 15 countries. In general, the national data on housing size are similar to the 

data on specific European cities presented in Table 3 and Appendix Table A. 

As Table 4 shows, U.S. housing (with an average size of 1,875 square feet per 

unit) is nearly twice as large as European housing (with an average size of 976 

square feet per unit.) After adjusting for the number of persons in each dwelling 

unit, Americans have an average of 721 square feet per person, compared to 396 

square feet for the average European. 

The housing of poor Americans (with an average of 1,228 square feet per unit) 

is smaller than that of the average American but larger than that of the average 

European (who has 976 square feet per unit). Overall, poor Americans have an average of 439 square feet of living space per person, which is as much as or more than 

the average citizen in most West European countries. (This comparison is to the average European, not poor Europeans.) 


Insert offset folio 35776A.048
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14See, for example, A Survey of Childhood Hunger in the United States (Washington, D.C.: 

Food Research Action Center, Community Childhood Hunger Identification Project, 1995) and 

‘‘1997 National Research Study,’’ in Hunger 1997: The Faces and Facts (Chicago, Ill.: America’s 

Second Harvest, 1997). 

Housing Quality 

Of course, it might be possible that the housing of poor American households 

could be spacious but still dilapidated or unsafe. However, data from the American 

Housing Survey indicate that such is not the case. For example, the survey provides 

a tally of households with ‘‘severe physical problems.’’ Only a tiny portion of poor 

households and an even smaller portion of total households fall into that category. 

The most common ‘‘severe problem,’’ according to the American Housing Survey, 

is a shared bathroom, which occurs when occupants lack a bathroom and must 

share bathroom facilities with individuals in a neighboring unit. This condition affects about 1 percent of all U.S. households and 2 percent of all poor households. 

About one-half of 1 percent (0.5 percent) of all households and 2 percent of poor 

households have other ‘‘severe physical problems.’’ The most common are repeated 

heating breakdowns and upkeep problems. 

The American Housing Survey also provides a count of households affected by 

‘‘moderate physical problems.’’ A wider range of households falls into this category— 

9 percent of the poor and nearly 5 percent of total households. However, the problems affecting these units are clearly modest. While living in such units might be 

disagreeable by modern middle-class standards, they are a far cry from Dickensian 

squalor. The most common problems are upkeep, lack of a full kitchen, and use of 

unvented oil kerosene or gas heaters as the primary heat source. (The last condition 

occurs almost exclusively in the South.) 

Hunger and Malnutrition in America 

There are frequent charges of widespread hunger and malnutrition in the United 

States.14 To understand these assertions, it is important, first of all, to distinguish 

between hunger and the more severe problem of malnutrition. Malnutrition (also 

called undernutrition) is a condition of reduced health due to a chronic shortage of 

calories and nutriments. There is little or no evidence of poverty-induced malnutrition in the United States. 

Hunger is a far less severe condition: a temporary but real discomfort caused by 

an empty stomach. The government defines hunger as ‘‘the uneasy or painful sensaVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:36 Jun 15, 2007 Jkt 035776 PO 00000 Frm 00105 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 E:\HR\OC\35776A.XXX 35776A

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15 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Household Food Security in the United States in 1995: 

Summary Report for the Food Security Measurement Project, 1997, p. 5. 16 In all cases, the figures concerning hunger in this paper refer solely to hunger caused by 

a lack of funds to buy food and do not include hunger that is attributed to any other cause. 17Mark Nord, Margaret Andrews, and Steven Carlson, Household Food Security in the United 

States, 2002, U.S. Department of Agriculture, October 2003, p. 7. The numbers in the text were 

taken from Table 1 of the USDA publication. Many individuals reside in households where at 

least one family member but not all family members experienced hunger. This is particularly 

true among families with children where the adults are far more likely than the children to experience hunger. According to Table 1of Household Food Security in the United States, 2002, 9.3 million persons lived in a household where at least one household member experienced hunger; however, not all of these persons experienced hunger themselves. The number of persons 

who experienced hunger individually was lower: 6.8 million people, including 6.3 million adults 

and 567,000 children. 18The numbers of persons identified as hungry throughout this paper correspond to individuals that the USDA identifies as ‘‘food insecure with hunger.’’ The USDA also has a second, 

broader category: ‘‘food insecure without hunger.’’ As the term implies, these individuals are not 

hungry. They may, however, at certain times in the year be forced to eat cheaper foods or a 

narrower range of foods than those to which they are ordinarily accustomed. According to the 

USDA, 7.6 percent of all households were ‘‘food insecure without hunger’’ in 2002. Food advocacy 

groups often inaccurately include the households that are ‘‘food insecure without hunger’’ in the 

count of households that are deemed hungry. 19 Nord, Andrews, and Carlson, Food Security in the United States, 2002, p. 7. Additional data 

provided by USDA. 

tion caused by lack of food.’’ 15 While hunger due to a lack of financial resources does 

occur in the United States, it is limited in scope and duration. According to the 

USDA, on a typical day, fewer than one American in 200 will experience hunger 

due to a lack of money to buy food.16 The hunger rate rises somewhat when examined over a longer time period; according to the USDA, some 6.9 million Americans, 

or 2.4 percent of the population, were hungry at least once during 2002.17 Nearly 

all hunger in the United States is short-term and episodic rather than continuous.18

Some 92 percent of those who experienced hunger in 2002 were adults, and only 

8 percent were children. Overall, some 567,000 children, or 0.8 percent of all children, were hungry at some point in 2002. In a typical month, roughly one child in 

400 skipped one or more meals because the family lacked funds to buy food. 

Not only is hunger relatively rare among U.S. children, but it has declined sharply since the mid-1990s. As Chart 2 shows, the number of hungry children was cut 

by a third between 1995 and 2002. According to the USDA, in 1995, there were 

887,000 hungry children: by 2002, the number had fallen to 567,000.19

Overall, some 97 percent of the U.S. population lived in families that reported 

they had ‘‘enough food to eat’’ during the entire year, although not always the kinds 


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103 

20 Nord, Andrews, and Carlson, Food Security in the United States, 2002, p. 16. 21 Ibid., p. 17. 22 Calculated from USDA food security survey for 2001. 23 C. T. Windham et al., ‘‘Nutrient Density of Diets in the USDA Nationwide Food Consumption Survey, 1977–1978: Impact of Socioeconomic Status on Dietary Density,’’ Journal of the 

American Dietetic Association, January 1983. 24 Interagency Board for Nutrition Monitoring and Related Research, Third Report on Nutrition Monitoring in the United States (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1995), 

p. VA 167. 

of foods they would have preferred. Around 2.5 percent stated their families ‘‘sometimes’’ did not have ‘‘enough to eat’’ due to money shortages, and one-half of 1 percent (0.5 percent) said they ‘‘often’’ did not have enough to eat due to a lack of 

funds. (See Chart 3.) 

Hunger and Poverty 

Among the poor, the hunger rate was obviously higher: During 2002, 12.8 percent 

of the poor lived in households in which at least one member experienced hunger 

at some point.20 Among poor children, 2.4 percent experienced hunger at some point 

in the year.21 Overall, most poor households were not hungry and did not experience 

food shortages during the year. 

When asked, some 89 percent of poor households reported they had ‘‘enough food 

to eat’’ during the entire year, although not always the kinds of food they would 

prefer. Around 9 percent stated they ‘‘sometimes’’ did not have enough to eat because of a lack of money to buy food. Another 2 percent of the poor stated that they 

‘‘often’’ did not have enough to eat due to a lack of funds.22 (See Chart 3.) 

Poverty and Malnutrition 

It is widely believed that a lack of financial resources forces poor people to eat 

low-quality diets that are deficient in nutriments and high in fat. However, survey 

data show that nutriment density (amount of vitamins, minerals, and protein per 

kilocalorie of food) does not vary by income class.23 Nor do the poor consume higherfat diets than do the middle class; the percentage of persons with high fat intake 

(as a share of total calories) is virtually the same for low-income and upper-middleincome persons.24 Overconsumption of calories in general, however, is a major problem among the poor, as it is within the general U.S. population. 

Examination of the average nutriment consumption of Americans reveals that age 

and gender play a far greater role than income class in determining nutritional intake. For example, the nutriment intakes of adult women in the upper middle class 

(with incomes above 350 percent of the poverty level) more closely resemble the intakes of poor women than they do those of upper-middle-class men, children, or 


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104 

25 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrient Intakes by Individuals in the United 

States, 1 Day, 1989–91, Nationwide Food Survey Report No. 91–2, 1995. 26 Ibid., Tables 10–1, 10–4. Table 4 in the present paper also provides the ‘‘mean adequacy 

ratio’’ for various groups. The mean adequacy ratio represents average intake of all the nutriments listed as a percent of RDA. However, in computing mean adequacy, intake values exceeding 100 percent of RDA are counted at 100, since the body cannot use an excess consumption 

of one nutriment to fill a shortfall of another nutriment. 

teens.25 The average nutriment consumption of upper-middle-income preschoolers, 

as a group, is virtually identical with that of poor preschoolers but not with the consumption of adults or older children in the upper middle class. 

This same pattern holds for adult males, teens, and most other age and gender 

groups. In general, children aged 0–11 years have the highest average level of nutriment intakes relative to the recommended daily allowance (RDA), followed by adult 

and teen males. Adult and teen females have the lowest level of intakes. This pattern holds for all income classes. 

Nutrition and Poor Children 

Government surveys provide little evidence of widespread undernutrition among 

poor children; in fact, they show that the average nutriment consumption among the 

poor closely resembles that of the upper middle class. For example, children in families with incomes below the poverty level actually consume more meat than do children in families with incomes at 350 percent of the poverty level or higher (roughly 

$65,000 for a family of four in today’s dollars). 

Table 5 shows the average intake of protein, vitamins, and minerals as a percentage of the recommended daily allowance among poor and middle-class children at 

various age levels.26 The intake of nutriments is very similar for poor and middleclass children and is generally well above the recommended daily level. For example, the consumption of protein (a relatively expensive nutriment) among poor children is, on average, between 150 percent and 267 percent of the RDA. 

When shortfalls of specific vitamins and minerals appear (for example, among 

teenage girls), they tend to be very similar for the poor and the middle class. While 

poor teenage girls, on average, tend to underconsume vitamin E, vitamin B–6, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, iron, and zinc, a virtually identical underconsumption of these same nutriments appears among upper-middle-class girls. 

Poor Children’s Weight and Stature 

On average, poor children are very well-nourished, and there is no evidence of 

widespread significant undernutrition. For example, two indicators of undernutrition among the young are ‘‘thinness’’ (low weight for height) and stuntedness (low 

height for age). These problems are rare to nonexistent among poor American children. 

The generally good health of poor American children can be illustrated by international comparisons. Table 6 provides data on children’s size based on the World 


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105 

27The World Health Organization uses standard height-for-age tables developed by the National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the U.S. 

Department and Health and Human Services. 28M. de Onis and J. P. Habicht, ‘‘Anthropometric Reference Data for International Use: Recommendations from a World Health Organization Expert Committee,’’ American Journal of 

Clinical Nutrition, 1996, pp. 650–658. 29 Calculation by the authors using National Health and Nutrition Evaluation Survey III data 

and WHO standard tables for shortness for age. Shortness for age is the result of genetic variation as well as nutritional factors. The World Health Organization standards assume that even 

in a very well-nourished population, 2.3 percent of children will have heights below the ‘‘stunted’’ cut-off levels due to normal genetic factors. Problems are apparent if the number of short 

children in a population rises appreciably above that 2.3 percent. 30 Bernard D. Karpinos, ‘‘Current Height and Weight of Youths of Military Age,’’ Human Biology, 1961, pp. 336–364. Recent data on young males in poverty provided by the National Center 

for Health Statistics of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, based on the second National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. 31 Interagency Board for Nutrition Monitoring and Related Research, Third Report on Nutrition Monitoring, Vol. 2, p. VA 219. 

Health Organization (WHO) Global Data Base on Child Growth: Children are 

judged to be short or ‘‘stunted’’ if their height falls below the 2.3 percentile level 

of standard height-to-age tables.27 Table 6 shows the percentage of children under 

age five in developing nations who are judged to be ‘‘stunted’’ by this standard. 

In developing nations as a whole, some 43 percent of children are stunted. In Africa, more than a third of young children are affected; in Asia, nearly half.28 By contrast, in the United States, some 2.6 percent of young children in poor households 

are stunted by a comparable standard—a rate only slightly above the expected 

standard for healthy, well-nourished children.29 While concern for the well-being of 

poor American children is always prudent, the data overall underscore how large 

and well-nourished poor American children are by global standards. 

Throughout this century, improvements in nutrition and health have led to increases in the rate of growth and ultimate height and weight of American children. 

Poor children have clearly benefited from this trend. Poor boys today at ages 18 and 

19 are actually taller and heavier than boys of similar age in the general U.S. population in the late 1950s. Poor boys living today are one inch taller and some 10 

pounds heavier than GIs of similar age during World War II, and nearly two inches 

taller and 20 pounds heavier than American doughboys back in World War I.30

Poverty and Obesity 

The principal nutrition-related health problem among the poor, as with the general U.S. population, stems from the overconsumption, not underconsumption, of 

food. While overweight and obesity are prevalent problems throughout the U.S. population, they are found most frequently among poor adults. Poor adult men are 

slightly less likely than non-poor men to be overweight (30.4 percent compared to 

31.9 percent); but, as Chart 4 shows, poor adult women are significantly more likely 

to be overweight than are non-poor women (47.3 percent compared to 32 percent).31


Insert offset folio 35776A.053
106 

32 Calculated from U.S. Bureau of the Census, Survey of Income and Program Participation, 

Extended Measures of Well-being Module, 1998. 

Living Conditions and Hardships Among the Poor 

Overall, the living standards of most poor Americans are far higher than is generally appreciated. The overwhelming majority of poor families are well-housed, 

have adequate food, and enjoy a wide range of modern amenities, including air conditioning and cable television. Some 70 percent of poor households report that during the course of the past year they were able to meet ‘‘all essential expenses,’’ including mortgage, rent, utility bills, and important medical care.32 (See Chart 5.) 

However, two caveats should be applied to this generally optimistic picture. First, 

many poor families have difficulty paying their regular bills and must scramble to 

make ends meet. For example, around one-quarter of poor families are late in paying the rent or utility bills at some point during the year. 

Second, the living conditions of the average poor household should not be taken 

to represent all poor households. There is a wide range of living conditions among 

the poor; while more than a quarter of the poor have cell phones and answering machines, a tenth of the poor have no telephone at all. While most of America’s poor 

live in accommodations with two or more rooms per person, roughly a tenth of the 

poor are crowded, with less than one room per person. 


Insert offset folio 35776A.054
107 

33 Calculated from U.S. Bureau of the Census, Survey of Income and Program Participation, 

Extended Measures of Well-being Module, 1998. 

These points are illustrated in Table 7, which lists the financial and material 

hardships among poor households in 1998.33 During at least one month in the preceding year, some 20 percent of poor households reported they were unable to pay 

their fuel, gas, or electric bills promptly; around 4 percent had their utilities cut off 

at some point due to nonpayment. Another 13 percent of poor households failed, at 

some point in the year, to make their full monthly rent or mortgage payments, and 

1 percent were evicted due to failure to pay rent. One in 10 poor families had their 

phones disconnected due to nonpayment at some time during the preceding year. 


Insert offset folio 35776A.055
108 

34The Survey of Income and Program Participation, Extended Measures of Well-being Module 

also contains a question about whether members of the household needed to see a dentist but 

did not go. Because the question does not specify whether or not the failure to visit the dentist 

was due to an inability to pay, we did not include the question in this report. 

Overall, more than one-quarter of poor families experienced at least one financial 

difficulty during the year. Most had a late payment of rent or utility bills. Some 

12 percent had phones or utilities cut off or were evicted. 

Poor households also experienced the material problems listed on Table 7.34 Some 

14 percent lacked medical insurance and had a family member who needed to go 

to a doctor or hospital but did not go; 11 percent experienced hunger in the household; and around 9 percent were overcrowded, with more than one person per room. 

Slightly less than 4 percent of poor households experienced upkeep problems with 

the physical conditions of their apartments or homes, having three or more of the 

physical problems listed in Table 7. 

Overall Hardship 

Altogether, around 58 percent of poor households experienced none of the financial or physical hardships listed in Table 7 These families were able to pay all their 

bills on time. They were able to obtain medical care if needed, were not hungry or 

crowded, and had few upkeep problems in the home. Another 20 percent of poor 

households experienced one financial or material problem during the year. Around 

10 percent of poor households had two financial or material problems, while 12 percent had three or more. 


Insert offset folio 35776A.056
109 

35Garfinkel, et al, 2006, p. 905. 36 Ibid., p. 906 37 Irwin Garfinkel, Lee Rainwater, and Timothy Smeeding, ‘‘Equal Opportunities for Children: 

Social Welfare Expenditures in the English-speaking countries and Westen Europe,’’ Focus, Vol. 

23. no. 3, Spring 2005, p. 19. 

The most common problem facing poor households was late payment of rent or 

utilities. While having difficulty paying monthly bills is stressful, in most cases late 

payment did not result in material hardship or deprivation. If late payment problems are excluded from the count, we find that two-thirds of poor households had 

none of the remaining problems listed in Table 7. Some 22 percent had one problem, 

and 12 percent had two or more problems. 

While it is appropriate to be concerned about the difficulties faced by some poor 

families, it is important to keep these problems in perspective. Many poor families 

have intermittent difficulty paying rent or utility bills but remain very well-housed 

by historic or international standards. Even poor families who are overcrowded and 

hungry, by U.S. standards, are still likely to have living conditions that are far 

above the world average. 

Cross National Comparisons of Social Welfare Expenditures 

Studies that compare the size and effects of the U.S. social welfare system with 

welfare in other nations usually restrict the comparison to cash welfare transfers. 

This can be misleading. The difference between the U.S. and other rich nations is 

not so much in the level of spending but in the type of spending. Comparatively, 

the U.S. spends little on cash aid for the non-elderly but a great deal on education 

and medical care. As leading poverty scholars, Timothy Smeeding, Irv Garfinkel and 

Lee Rainwater write, ‘‘studies that take account of only cash transfers are omitting 

about half of the total redistribution accomplished by welfare states. . . . Americans 

are small spenders on cash support but big spenders on education and especially 

health care.’’35

The U.S. differs from other rich nations in another important respect. In European nations, government medical care programs cover the entire population, rich 

and poor; whereas, in the U.S., government directly funds the health care only of 

the elderly (through Medicare) and the poor (mainly through Medicaid). Consequently, European social welfare spending may appear large because their government health care programs cover everyone, while in the U.S., most working and 

middle class families receive health care through employer provided coverage. A 

meaningful comparison of expenditures thus must either include employer provided 

care or exclude European government expenditures on the non-elderly middle class. 

A third major difference between the U.S. and other rich nations is that those nations rely far more on regressive indirect taxes, such at the Value Added Tax, which 

fall heavily on consumers. These indirect taxes take back a significant portion of the 

cash welfare aid these societies give out. Since nations differ in the degree to which 

social welfare benefits are taxed, the best measure of comparison would be a comprehensive count of post tax benefits. 

The pioneering analysis of Garfinkel, Rainwater, and Smeeding provides the best 

comparison of social welfare spending in the U.S. and other countries and its effect 

on inequality. This analysis provides a comprehensive post tax count of social welfare spending including: government pension aid, cash and near cash welfare, public 

spending on primary and secondary education, and health care spending including 

employer provided coverage. Their analysis finds that the post tax value of social 

welfare spending in the U.S. equals around 25 percent of Gross Domestic Product 

(GDP) (about 4 to 5 percent points of this figure represents employer-provided 

health care). U.S. spending as a share of GDP is greater than the share in Australia, Canada and the Netherlands but less than other rich nations. The highest 

level of social welfare spending by this measure occurs in Belgium where social welfare spending is slightly more than 30 percent of GDP.36

However, social welfare spending as a share of GDP can be somewhat misleading 

since the U.S. has a substantially higher GDP per capita than most European nations. It is therefore possible for the U.S. to spend less on social welfare as a share 

of GDP while still having higher absolute spending per person. The analysis of 

Smeeding, et. al., finds this is the case. In fact, social welfare spending per capita 

is higher in the U.S. than in all the other rich nations studied except Sweden.37

With respect to social welfare spending on children, the picture is even more favorable for the U.S. In 2000, social welfare spending in the U.S. (including cash and 

near cash benefits, primary and secondary public education, and health care) averaged $23,982 for each household with children. This spending level exceeded all the 

other rich nations in the study; it was nearly twice the Australian level and almost 

110 

38 Irwin Garfinkel, Lee Rainwater, and Timothy Smeeding, ‘‘Welfare State Expenditures and 

the Distribution of Child Opportunities,’’ Luxembourg Income Study Working Papers Series, No. 

379, June 2004, p 18. 39Garfinkel, et al, 2006, p. 908. 40 Ibid., p. 907. 41 Ibid., p. 913. 42 Ibid., p. 914. 43 Robert E. Rector and Rea S. Hederman, Jr., ‘‘The Role of Parental Work in Child Poverty,’’ 

Heritage Foundation Center for Data Analysis Report No. CDA03–01, January 27, 2003. 

50 percent higher than the level in France. Smeeding, Garfinkel, and Rainwater 

write, ‘‘For those of us who cling to the notion that the United States welfare state 

is undersized, the absolute size of the United States total mean and median welfare 

state benefits per household with children—$22,259 [median] (or $23,982 mean)— 

is staggering once one includes health and education spending.’’ 38

Their analysis also shows that the widespread belief that the U.S. is far more unequal than other nations is misplaced, at least with respect to the bottom half of 

the income distribution. If all households are arrayed in order from the lowest to 

the highest level of economic resources, the ratio of the income of household at the 

tenth percentile from the bottom to the income of the median household is called 

the P10/P50 ratio. Including all social welfare spending, the P10/P50 ratio in the 

U.S. is 53 percent. This is slightly higher than the ratios in Australia and Canada, 

and slightly lower than the ratios of European countries. The greatest equality by 

this measure is found in Sweden which has a P10/P50 ratio of 58 percent.39

Smeeding, et al, conclude that the equality of rich nations is very similar by this 

measure, and that cross national differences in the P10/P50 ratios of rich nations, 

including the U.S, are ‘‘barely distinguishable.’’ 40 Finally, the fact that the U.S. is 

richer than the other nations in the comparison creates the possibility that the absolute economic resources devoted to U.S. households in the bottom decile may exceed 

the absolute resources of comparable households in European nations. 

Smeeding, Garfinkel, and Rainwater conclude, ‘‘what distinguishes the United 

States from other rich nations is not so much the overall level of spending or the 

degree of inequality of total resources at the bottom of the income distribution, but 

rather the kind of resources being transferred. Comparatively speaking, the United 

States spends enough on health care transfers to reduce the economic distance between low income families and average income families nearly as much as do other 

rich nations.’’ 41 The authors do question whether the far higher per capita medical 

spending levels in the U.S. actually translate into higher quality care compared to 

other nations and find that issue is, as yet, unresolved.42

Reducing Child Poverty 

The generally high living standards of poor Americans are good news. Even better 

is the fact that our nation can readily reduce remaining poverty, especially among 

children. To accomplish this, we must focus on the main causes of child poverty: low 

levels of parental work and high levels of single parenthood. 

In good economic times or bad, the typical poor family with children is supported 

by only 800 hours of work during a year: That amounts to 16 hours of work per 

week. If work in each family were raised to 2,000 hours per year—the equivalent 

of one adult working 40 hours per week through the year—nearly 75 percent of poor 

children would be lifted out of official poverty.43

111 

44 Robert E. Rector, Kirk A. Johnson, Ph.D., Patrick F. Fagan, and Lauren R. Noyes, ‘‘Increasing Marriage Would Dramatically Reduce Child Poverty,’’ Heritage Foundation Center for Data 

Analysis Report No. CDA03–06, May 20, 2003. 45 Robert Rector and Patrick F. Fagan, ‘‘The Continuing Good News About Welfare Reform,’’ 

Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 1620, February 6, 2003. 

The decline in marriage is the second major cause of child poverty. Nearly twothirds of poor children reside in single-parent homes; each year, an additional 1.3 

million children are born out of wedlock. Increasing marriage would substantially 

reduce child poverty: If poor mothers married the fathers of their children, almost 

three-quarters would immediately be lifted out of poverty.44

In recent years, the United States has established a reasonable record in reducing 

child poverty. Successful anti-poverty policies were partially implemented in the 

welfare reform legislation of 1996, which replaced the old Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program with a new program called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). 

A key element of this reform was a requirement that some welfare mothers either 

prepare for work or get jobs as a condition of receiving aid. As this requirement 

went into effect, welfare rolls plummeted and employment of single mothers increased in an unprecedented manner. As employment of single mothers rose, child 

poverty dropped rapidly. For example, in the quarter-century before welfare reform, 

there was no net change in the poverty rate of children in single-mother families; 

after reform was enacted, the poverty rate dropped in an unprecedented fashion, 

falling from 53.1 percent in 1995 to 39.8 percent in 2001.45

In general, however, welfare reform has been limited in both scope and intensity. 

Even in the TANF program, over half the adult beneficiaries are idle on the rolls 

and are not engaged in activities leading to self-sufficiency. Work requirements are 

virtually nonexistent in related programs such as food stamps and public housing. 

Even worse, despite the fact that marriage has enormous financial and psychological 

benefits for parents and children, welfare reform has done little or nothing to 

strengthen marriage in low-income communities. Overall, the welfare system continues to encourage idle dependence rather than work and to reward single parenthood while penalizing marriage. 

If child poverty is to be substantially reduced, welfare must be transformed. Ablebodied parents must be required to work or prepare for work, and the welfare system should encourage rather than penalize marriage. 

Conclusion 

The living conditions of persons defined as poor by the government bear little resemblance to notions of ‘‘poverty’’ held by the general public. If poverty is defined 

as lacking adequate nutritious food for one’s family, a reasonably warm and dry 

apartment to live in, or a car with which to get to work when one is needed, then 


Insert offset folio 35776A.057
112 

there are relatively few poor persons remaining in the United States. Real material 

hardship does occur, but it is limited in scope and severity. 

The typical American defined as ‘‘poor’’ by the government has a car, air conditioning, a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave. He 

has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, and 

a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His home is in good repair and is not 

overcrowded. By his own report, his family is not hungry and he had sufficient 

funds in the past year to meet his family’s essential needs. While this individual’s 

life is not opulent, it is equally far from the popular images of dire poverty conveyed 

by the press, liberal activists, and politicians. 

But the living conditions of the average poor person should not be taken to mean 

that all poor Americans live without hardship. There is a wide range of living conditions among the poor. Roughly a third of poor households do face material hardships 

such as overcrowding, intermittent food shortages, or difficulty obtaining medical 

care. However, even these households would be judged to have high living standards 

in comparison to most other people in the world. 

Perhaps the best news is that the United States can readily reduce its remaining 

poverty, especially among children. The main causes of child poverty in the United 

States are low levels of parental work and high numbers of single-parent families. 

By increasing work and marriage, our nation can virtually eliminate remaining 

child poverty. 

113 


Insert offset folio 35776A.058
114 

The Heritage Foundation is a public policy, research, and educational organization operating under Section 501(C)(3). It is privately supported, and receives no 

funds from any government at any level, nor does it perform any government or 

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The Heritage Foundation is the most broadly supported think tank in the United 

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accounting firm of Deloitte & Touche. A list of major donors is available from The 

Heritage Foundation upon request. 

Members of The Heritage Foundation staff testify as individuals discussing their 

own independent research. The views expressed are their own, and do not reflect 

an institutional position for The Heritage Foundation or its board of trustees. 

f 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Dr. Bernstein. 

STATEMENT OF JARED BERNSTEIN, DIRECTOR OF THE 

LIVING STANDARDS PROGRAM, ECONOMIC POLICY INSTITUTE 

Dr. BERNSTEIN. Chairman McDermott and Representative 

Weller, I thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I sincerely 

applaud your willingness to examine these issues of great importance to those of us on the panel and to our most economically vulnerable families. It is a symbol of a just society that we engage in 

an accurate assessment of the extent of material need among our 

populations. Such an assessment serves multiple purposes. 

First, we want a tool that will tell us, given what we know about 

human needs and prevailing living standards, how many people 

lack the resources to meet their basic needs. Note that this framing 

introduces an absolute measure, meeting basic needs, but also a 

relative dimension, prevailing standards to the question of poverty 

measurement, and of course, we want to be able to assess the anti 

poverty effectiveness of market forces as well as or nonmarket 

interventions. 

It is widely agreed upon that our current poverty measure fails 

to meet these criteria and does so by a long shot. It does not provide an accurate picture of the extent of material deprivation, nor 

does it tell us how far the poor are falling behind relative to the 

rest of us, nor does it enable us to gauge the effectiveness of our 

anti-poverty initiatives. My written testimony stresses these key 

points. 

Our approach to measuring poverty is far outdated and fails to 

provide an accurate count of the extent that we need in America. 

Newer methods that correct many of the problems with the official 

measure show more people in poverty than the 37 million officially 

poor. I recognize that this statement contradicts some of the data 

cited in the introductory statement by Representative Weller, and 

I am happy to revisit that. 

These improved methods, as implemented by the Census Bureau, 

should be adopted to replace the current official measure. The fact 

that the current measure is adjusted only for price changes and not 

115 

for income growth in tandem with rising inequality has led to large 

and growing gaps between the officially poor and the rest of society. Even while today’s poor have some goods that were out of 

reach of the poor in decades past, in relative terms, today’s poor 

are increasingly left behind in the mainstream. 

Efforts to gauge the true cost of meeting an accurate basic living 

standard in today’s economy yield income thresholds that are about 

twice that of the official poverty lines. Relative to prior years, a significantly larger share of poor children are living in families with 

working parents. The income constraints faced by these working 

parents underscore the need for an improved system of work supports, including subsidies for wages, health care, child care, housing, and transportation. 

Getting a little deeper into a critique of the official measure, 

these measures were developed in the mid-1960s based on data 

from the mid-1950s. Since they have been adjusted largely just for 

price changes but not for improvements in general living standards, they are ever less representative of relative deprivation. In 

fact, back in 1960, the official poverty threshold for a family of four 

was about half the median income for a four-person family. Today, 

at about 20,000 for a family of four with two children, it is 30 percent of the four-person median and for half of the 30 percent of the 

median for a four-person family. 

Economist Adam Smith has recognized that, even if the poor are 

able to meet their fundamental needs for food and shelter in such 

a way as to sustain their lives, they can, by dint of the economic 

and the social distance between themselves and the rest of us, still 

experience deprivation that is harmful to society, but to this day, 

poverty analysts overlook this point, citing material gains made by 

the poor of today relative to those of the past. 

Two such analysts writing in 1999 noted that, by the standards 

1971, many of today’s core families might be considered members 

of the middle class. Another poverty analyst noted ‘‘Poor people’s 

physical and material well-being is now considerably better than it 

was in the late ’60s. How else to explain why so many poor people 

now have color TVs, air conditioning in their own homes?’’ 

These comparisons are misleading. They implicitly freeze the 

well-being of the poor at a point in time, ignoring progress in technology, consumption, relative prices, and opportunities. In short, to 

ignore the relative economic distance between the poor and everyone else is to ensure that they will remain outside the mainstream. 

Yes, they will not starve. Many will be housed, and a large majority will watch TV in color, but they will still be separate and unequal relative to the majority. 

Just in the interest of time, I am going to finish up here. Most 

poor families have at least one worker. With welfare reform, income from work has become much more important to poor and near 

poor families. Many more children live in working poor families, 

and yet, even in the best of times, gaps are going to exist between 

what these working poor families can earn in the low-wage labor 

market and what they need to meet their basic needs as I have discussed. This implies an important role for work supports. I would 

be happy to say more about that in Q&A if it would be useful. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. If we have time. 

116 

1 Henry Holzer, ‘‘The Economic Costs of Child Poverty,’’ Testimony before the U.S. House 

Committee on Ways and Means. U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. 24 January 

2007, Accessed 8 Feb 2007, . 2 Howard Glennerster, ‘‘United States Poverty Studies and Poverty Measurement: The Past 

Twenty-Five Years,’’ Social Science Review, March 2002. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Bernstein follows:] 

Statement of Jared Bernstein, Ph.D., Director of the Living Standards 

Program, Economic Policy Institute 

Chairman McDermott and members of this Subcommittee, I thank you for the opportunity to testify. I sincerely applaud your willingness to examine these issues of 

great importance to those on this panel and to our most economically vulnerable 

families. 

It is a symbol of a just society that we engage in an accurate assessment of the 

extent of material need among our population. Such an assessment serves multiple 

purposes. 

First, we want a measurement tool that will tell us, given what we know about 

human needs and prevailing living standards, how many people lack the resources 

to meet those needs. Policy makers may and do have different ideas about what 

should be done about such deficits, but all would presumably like an accurate count. 

Note that this framing of the concept introduces both an absolute (meeting basic 

needs) and a relative dimension (prevailing standards) to the question of poverty 

measurement. 

Second, since it implies underinvestment in the economic well-being of adults and, 

in particular, children, poverty can cause long-term harm to our economy and society. One recent estimate suggested that child poverty ultimately costs society halfa-trillion dollars in sacrificed productivity and ancillary costs each year (Holzer, 

2007).1 It is thus very much in our national interest to measure poverty’s extent 

as accurately as we can. 

Third, we want to be able to assess the anti-poverty effectiveness of market forces 

and non-market interventions. When policy makers undertake initiatives to reduce 

the extent of economic deprivation, an accurate accounting of the effectiveness of 

such interventions is critical. All of us, whether we’re members of this panel, taxpayers, voters, or the targets of these programs themselves, have a vested interest 

in their cost effectiveness. Are they accomplishing their goals? Are they doing so 

without creating unintended consequences that threaten to offset the gains? Are we 

getting the best possible ‘‘bang for the buck?’’ 

It is widely agreed upon that the current poverty measure fails to meet these criteria, and does so by a long shot. It does not provide an accurate picture of the extent of material deprivation, it does not tell us how far the poor are falling behind 

relative to the rest of us, and it does not enable us to gauge the effectiveness of 

our antipoverty initiatives. 

As a British analyst who reviewed a quarter-century of our poverty debate summarized, ‘‘The United States got itself the worst of all worlds—an increasingly mean 

measure of poverty that also suggested that U.S. social programs were not making 

a difference when they were’’ 2 (Glennerster, 2002). 

Key points in this testimony are: 

• Our current approach to measuring poverty is far outdated and fails to provide 

an accurate count of the extent of need in America. 

• Newer methods that correct many of the problems with the official measure 

show more people in poverty than the 37 million officially poor (12.6% of the 

population), including 13 million children. These methods should be adopted to 

replace the current, official measure. 

• The fact that the current measure is adjusted only for price changes and not 

for income growth, in tandem with rising income inequality, has led to large 

and growing gaps between the officially poor and the rest of society. Even while 

today’s poor have some goods that were out of reach of the poor in decades past, 

in relative terms, today’s poor are increasingly left behind the mainstream. 

• Efforts to gauge the true cost of meeting an adequate, basic living standard in 

today’s economy yield income thresholds that are about twice that of the official 

poverty lines. 

• Relative to prior years, a significantly larger share of poor children are living 

in families with working parents. The income constraints faced by these working parents underscore the need for increased work supports, including subsidies for wages, health care, child care, housing, and transportation. 

117 

3 Jared Bernstein, ‘‘Let the War on the Poverty Line Commence,’’ The Foundation for Child 

Development Working Paper Series, June 2001. 4 Bureau of Labor Statistics, ‘‘At Issue: Tracking Changes in Consumers’ Spending Habits,’’ 

Monthly Labor Review, September 1999. 5 Adam Smith, 1776, ‘‘Wealth of Nations.’’ See, http://www.adamsmith.org/smith/won/won-b5- 

c2-article-4-ss2.html, for context. John Cassidy provides this quote in his New Yorker article, 

Relative Deprivation, 4/3/06 (http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/060403fa_fact). 6W. Michael Cox and Richard Alm, as quoted by Cassidy, ibid. 

7Doug Besharov, ‘‘Poor America,’’ Wall Street Journal, 24, March 2006. 

Critique of the Official Poverty Measure 

The shortcomings of our poverty measure have been amply documented and I will 

only briefly review these critiques (see Bernstein, 2001, for a thorough review).3

• The official thresholds were developed in the mid-1960s based on data from the 

mid-1950s. Since then they have largely been adjusted only for price changes 

but not for improvements in general living standards. 

The original poverty thresholds were derived by poverty analyst Mollie 

Orshansky, who based the measure on research on food consumption of low-income 

families in the mid-1950s. Surveys from the mid-1950s also revealed that families 

spent about a third of their income on food, so she simply tripled the value of the 

‘‘economy food plan’’ for a given family size. 

Amazingly, with very few changes, and with adjustments for inflation, the 

Orshansky measure remains the official poverty measure to this day. Food consumption represents a much smaller share of family budgets than was the case 50 years 

ago (its average share has fallen by about half),4 while housing, transportation, and 

health care, for example, comprise larger shares. Simply updating the official 

thresholds for this change alone would lead poverty thresholds (and poverty rates) 

to be much higher today. 

One problem with the official approach is that as living standards rise for the rest 

of society, those deemed poor by an absolute threshold adjusted solely for price 

changes will fall behind the rest of us (this would not be the case with a relative 

measure, such as 50% of median income). Back in 1960, the official poverty threshold for a family of four was about half the median income for a four-person family. 

Today, at about $20,000 for a family of four with two children, it’s around 30% of 

the four-person median. 

In an era with sharply growing income inequality, it is worth contemplating the 

importance of this development. Why should we be concerned if our poverty thresholds drift further below the income of the median household? 

The answer is that the concept of deprivation is not solely an absolute concept; 

it is a relative one as well. Economists since Adam Smith have recognized that even 

if the poor are able to meet their fundamental needs for food and shelter in such 

a way to sustain their lives, they can, by dint of the economic and social distance 

between themselves and the rest of us, still experience deprivation that is harmful 

to society. 

As Smith put it, over two hundred years ago: 

‘‘By necessaries I understand not only the commodities which are indispensably 

necessary for the support of life, but what ever the customs of the country renders 

it indecent for creditable people, even the lowest order, to be without. A linen shirt, 

for example, is, strictly speaking, not a necessary of life. The Greeks and Romans 

lived, I suppose, very comfortably, though they had no linen. But in the present 

times, through the greater part of Europe, a creditable day-laborer would be 

ashamed to appear in public without a linen shirt, the want of which would be supposed to denote that disgraceful degree of poverty which, it is presumed, nobody can 

well fall into, without extreme bad conduct. Custom, in the same manner, has rendered leather shoes a necessary of life in England.’’5

To this day, some poverty analysts overlook this point, citing material gains made 

by today’s poor relative to those of the past. Two such analysts, for example, writing 

in 1999 noted that ‘‘By the standards of 1971, many of today’s poor families might 

be considered members of the middle class.’’6

Poverty analyst Doug Besharov notes that ‘‘. . . poor people’s physical and material well-being is considerably better now than in the late ’60s. How else to explain 

why so many poor now have color TV (93%) and air conditioning (50%), and own 

their own homes (46%)?’’7

Such comparisons are misleading. They implicitly freeze the well-being of the poor 

at a point-in-time, ignoring progress in technology, consumption, relative prices, and 

opportunities. In short, to ignore the relative economic distance between the poor 

and everyone else is to ensure that they will remain outside the mainstream. Yes, 

118 

8Gordon M. Fisher, ‘‘Relative or Absolute: New Light on the Behavior of Poverty Lines Over 

Time,’’ Newsletter of the Government Statistics Section and the Social Statistics Section of the 

American Statistical Association, Summer 1996: pp. 10–12. 

they will not starve, many will be housed, and a large majority will watch TV in 

color. But they will still be separate and unequal relative to the majority. 

Interestingly, as Fisher points out (2005), subjective measures—responses from 

the public as to what it takes to make ends meet—clearly support a relative component to measuring poverty. For each 1% increase in national income, these subjective measures grow by 0.6%-1%.8 Much as Adam Smith recognized hundreds of 

years ago, when thinking about what constitutes a fair poverty threshold, we instinctively add a strong relative component. Implicitly, we want to prevent a growing gap between ourselves and the least well off among us. Our official poverty 

measure, however, allows this gap to grow. 

• The official measure ignores the value of some publicly-provided benefits that 

should be counted as income to their recipients. 

As measured by the Census Bureau, under rules established by the Office of Management and Budget, the official income measure in our poverty accounts is pretax, 

post-cash transfer. Thus, it includes the cash value of government transfers like 

welfare payments and Social Security, but omits, for example, the market value of 

food stamps or tax benefits like the Earned Income Tax Credit. 

These are salient omissions. By excluding such resources, we create two problems. 

First, we underestimate the actual resources accruing to low-income families, and 

second, we prevent ourselves from observing the anti-poverty impact of these initiatives. 

For these reasons, the omission of these benefits is widely agreed to be a significant problem with the current measure. There is, however, some disagreement 

about how to value of economic resources. For example, some analysts argue that 

we should also consider wealth and service flows from investments, such of the 

value of housing consumed by homeowners. Another controversial area, one of some 

magnitude, is whether to include the value of publicly provided health care, and if 

so, how to calculate it. 

• The official thresholds fail to account for necessary expenses associated with 

work and medical care. 

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS), in their work seminal work on how we 

might improve our poverty measure, concluded that it made sense to subtract from 

income costs associated with work, largely child care and transportation. This adjustment is particularly germane in an era when anti-poverty policy is predicated 

on work in the paid labor market. Imagine, for example, a single parent who works 

full time, with earnings that lift her family above the poverty line. Yet, once we net 

out her child-care expenditures, she falls below that line. Such an example shows 

that the costs associated with climbing out of poverty can make the climb that much 

steeper. Similarly, if her out-of-pocket medical expenditures pushed her back below 

poverty, we would want to account for that spending as well, subtracting it from 

income before comparing her income to the poverty threshold (this too was a NAS 

recommendation). 

• The official measure makes no adjustments for geographical variation in the 

cost of living. 

Though prices differ considerably by region, the official poverty measure makes 

no adjustments for the fact that the same level of income has greater buying power 

in one area of the country relative to another. Part of this omission stems from the 

lack of official inter-area price deflators, though exciting progress is being made in 

this area (see Aten, 2006). Aten finds, for example, that prices in New York City 

in 2003 were about the same as those in San Diego, but about 50% higher than 

those in St. Louis. 

Political constraints are in play here too. Adjusting for inter-area price differences, areas with relatively lower prices will find their poverty rates decrease 

compared to current measures, and this could lower anti-poverty benefits received 

by such areas (and vice-versa, of course, for areas with higher prices), as a range 

of federal programs allocate their benefits based on formulae that depend on calculating numbers of people in poverty. 

There are numerous other concerns of a technical nature regarding the official 

measure. Poverty analysts have found arguably better equivalence scales—adjustments for the needs of families of different sizes and composition—than those used 

in the current measure. Also, and this one makes a big difference, many analysts 

119 

9Some of this material was in Mishel, Bernstein, and Allegretto, 2006. For a good discussion 

of the ongoing work at Census and BLS on these issues, see. 10This figure also appears in Bernstein and Sherman, 2006. 

argue that thresholds should be adjusted for prices using a different version of the 

consumer price index than the CPI–U, the current deflator used by Census. The alternative deflator most often referenced in these discussion is the CPI–RS, which 

incorporates in an historically consistent manner (back to 1978) all of the advances 

made by BLS in measuring inflation. 

In sum, I can firmly assert that a consensus exists among social scientists regarding the inadequacy of the current measure. To the extent we depend on it, we unnecessarily limit our knowledge of the magnitude and composition of the poor population, the impact of our programs, and our ability to reach those truly in need. 

An Improved Measure 

An improved measure would correct these shortcomings. What’s needed is a set 

of thresholds and an income measure that designates as poor those families whose 

members cannot adequately meet their basic needs, given what we know about 

human needs and prevailing living standards. 

It is critical in this measurement endeavor to avoid a piecemeal approach: our 

new measure must deal as comprehensively as possible with both a complete accounting of available resources on the income side, as well as expenses on the 

threshold side. Some analysts, for example, add near-cash benefits like food stamps, 

or tax benefits, like the EITC, to income, and show how this reduces poverty. This 

may be analytically useful way to isolate the impact of a particular program, but 

it is not an improved measure of poverty. Adjustments to the income side of the 

equation must be matched by adjustments to the thresholds. 

What would such a measure show? Since any poverty measure invariably involves 

normative decisions, there are lots of different measures. However, it is again widely 

agreed upon that the NAS recommendations deal successfully with many of the concerns raised above. We also benefit from the fact that poverty analysts at the Census Bureau have operationalized the NAS recommendations, creating numerous 

variants based on the NAS suggestions.9

The NAS measures have these advantages over the official measure: 

• The NAS thresholds are based on actual expenditures on food, clothing, and 

shelter and thus reflect increases in living standards (though not to the extent 

of family budgets, as discussed below). 

• The NAS income measure is after-tax, and thus reflects the poverty reduction 

effects of tax credits. 

• They include non-cash benefits in income (though they do not include the value 

of publicly provided health care). 

• They deduct some work expenses, like child care expenditures for working families, from income and subtract out-of-pocket medical expenses, including premium payments. 

• They factor in regional differences in cost-of-living. 

As noted, there are many variants to these measures, and the Census Bureau has 

generated a consistent time series back to 1999 of 12 different NAS-based approaches. For example, some measures account for geographical differences while 

others do not. 

A fundamental question for this committee to consider is, relative to the official 

measure, do these improved measures generate lower or higher poverty rates? The 

answer, shown in Figure 1, is clear: the NAS measures are uniformly higher than 

the official measure.10 The Figure shows the range of the 12 measures, which is almost always above the official. On average over the period covered by the graph, 

the NAS rates are about one percentage point above the official rate, implying about 

2.5 million more persons on the poverty rolls. 

120 

11To compare the composition shift, rates must be standardized, as in this table. 

These measures also tend to change the composition of who is poor.11 Under the 

NAS because work expenses are subtracted from income, working poverty rises, especially among single parents facing child care costs. A similar treatment of out-ofpocket medical spending leads to higher poverty rates among the elderly. Because 

more transfers are counted as family resources, African-American poverty rates are 

lower under the NAS measures, though still much higher than those of whites. 

A Relative Measure 

The NAS measure is a vast improvement in all the ways noted above, but it too 

is limited in the extent to which it captures relative differences between the poor 

and the rest of society. Another way to measure poverty—one with great intuitive 

appeal—tracks the poor while accounting for changes in prevailing income levels 

among the non-poor. Such measures are called ‘‘relative,’’ in that they set the poverty threshold as a percent of the median income, which moves each year, typically 

rising in nominal terms. (The NAS measure has a relative component, as the 

thresholds are keyed to changes in median consumption expenditures). 

The utility of this measure—and note that it is the norm in international comparisons—is that it shows how the poor or faring relative to middle income families, and 

thus speaks directly to the concept of ‘‘relative deprivation.’’ 

The 1990s are a good example of the importance of this approach to poverty measurement. The tight job market, in tandem with a large expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, helped lead to significant reductions in a comprehensive poverty 

measure (i.e., one that includes such transfers as the EITC). But because median 

family income also grew quickly over this period, much less relative than absolute 

progress was achieved. 

Table 1 compares relative poverty to absolute poverty, using adjusted income 

measures much like those recommended by the NAS (the absolute poverty measure 

here is from unpublished tabulations provided by Wendell Primus). Absolute poverty 

fell fairly steeply in the 1990s, from 15.5% to 10% by this measure. But relative poverty fell only slightly, from 18.4% to 17.7%. 


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12David S. Johnson et al, ‘‘A Century of Family Budgets in the United States,’’ Monthly Labor 

Review, May 2001. 13 Bernstein et al, 1999. 

Relative and Absolute Poverty Measures, 1989–2004 

Relative 

(50% of Median) 

Absolute 

(NAS Style) Difference Rel-Abs 

1989 18.4% 15.5% 2.9% 

2000 17.7% 10.0% 7.7% 

2004 18.5% 12.5% 6.0% 

Changes 

1989–2000 -0.7% -5.5% 

2000–04 0.8% 2.5% 

Souce: State of Working America, 2006/07, Figure 6G. Absolute measure is unpublished, provided by Wendell Primus. Relative measure by author. 

The table shows that the poor made a great deal of ground in absolute terms: over 

the 1990s, as low-incomes rose in real terms, more families made it over the threshold. But the relative measure shows that low incomes grew at about the same rate 

as middle incomes, so the share of poor below half the median changed little over 

these years. 

In other words, the relative measure tracks social/economic distance between the 

poor and the middle-class in a way that absolute measures do not. As such, they 

quite directly reveal the impact of changes in inequality on poverty. The share of 

the population that is poor in relative terms has hovered around 18% since the mid1980s, showing that by this benchmark, many more persons are poor in relative 

terms—their income is less than half the median—than in absolute terms. The fact 

that such a significant share of our population remains relatively distant from the 

mainstream is an important dimension of the poverty problem. 

Family Budgets 

Though the official Orshansky poverty measure has gotten by far the most attention in this debate, budget analysts have a long history of measuring the amount 

of income needed to meet a basic standard. This work, under the rubric of family 

budgets, has generally been underutilized in the poverty debate, yet there is much 

we can learn from it about the income constraints facing American families today. 

In this work, economists (along with nutritionists, health care experts, etc.) have 

set out to tally the amount of income needed to meet a basic living standard, one 

where a generally accepted set of material needs is met. As Johnson et al noted, 

‘‘most budget standards have been calculated by building up a budget that would 

provide families with a modest, fair, or sufficient income.’’ 12 In our own work on 

basic needs budgets for working families, these needs included decent housing, an 

adequate diet, child care (when no parental caretaker is available), health care, 

transportation, and the money needed to pay taxes.13

Obviously, criteria like ‘‘modest,’’ ‘‘fair,’’ and even ‘‘sufficient,’’ are normative judgments, although, as noted above, family budgets are often based on expert opinion, 

such as when nutritionists recommend an adequate diet. But the committee should 

recognize that there is simply no ‘‘right’’ way to measure such concepts, including 

poverty. When we engage in this exercise, we balance a variety of needs, sensibilities, and political, if not existential considerations. We recognize that there is a distribution of well-being, and that it would be unreflective of realistic outcomes in a 

market economy to designate, say, everyone below the 80th, or even the 50th percentile of the income scale as ‘‘poor.’’ Yet, it would be unjust in an affluent, highly 

productive economy to label only those facing the most severe material deprivation 

as poor. 

Family budgets attempt to balance these extremes by recognizing that families 

who are unable to meet basic needs—and again, as Adam Smith pointed out, needs 

that derive in part from societal standards—face a material disadvantage that government should recognize and address. In fact, such budgets continue to be used by 

the Department of Labor to set eligibility criteria for job training programs (Johnson 

et al, 2001). 

122 

14Sylvia Allegretto, ‘‘Basic Family Budgets: Working families’ incomes often fail to meet living 

expenses around the U.S.,’’ EPI Briefing Paper, 1 Sept. 2005. Accessed 8 Feb 2007. 15 Ibid. 16Fisher, Gordon M. ‘‘The Development and History of the U.S. Poverty Thresholds: A Brief 

Overview.’’ Newsletter of the Government Statistics Section and the Social Statistics Section of 

the American Statistical Association. Winter 1997: pp. 6–7. Accessed 8 Feb 2007. 17Please refer to BLS tables, ‘‘Families by Number of Working Family Members and Family 

Structure: 2005.’’ 

It is instructive that these budgets are well above poverty thresholds, usually in 

the range of two-times their value. For example, Johnson et al report a family budget for a married couple with two children of $36,550 in 1998; Allegretto (2005) reports a family budget for the same family type of just under $40,000 for 2004.14 In 

both cases, these budget levels are about twice the official poverty threshold for that 

family type. In fact, Allegretto’s work shows that while about 9% of the family types 

she examines are officially poor, about 30% are below the family budget thresholds. 

Does this finding imply that 30% are poor, or materially deprived in the sense 

that has been discussed in this testimony? No, for a number of reasons. First, the 

family budget standard is higher than the poverty standard. For example, some of 

the family budget assumptions would likely be considered too generous for the poverty debate. Much of this work uses HUD Fair Market Rents for housing costs, and 

these typically give the 40th percentile rent for currently available rentals. Child 

care costs are often based on qualified center-based care; health care includes some 

measure of non-group premium costs.15 The distinction between these two standards—poverty and family budgets—recalls the views of poverty measurement pioneer Mollie Orshansky, who viewed her original poverty thresholds as a measure 

of income inadequacy, not of income adequacy.16 Family budgets are closer to the 

latter. 

Second, this research tends to deal only with the threshold side of the question, 

and not with the resource side. As such, it lacks the holistic quality of the NAS 

work. 

But it does provide a common sense benchmark that has had some considerable 

impact on the poverty analysis community. The logic of the family budget work is 

straightforward and commonsensical: if we take an objective look at what things 

cost, it takes an income well above the poverty threshold to make ends meet. This, 

and the fact that family budgets often correspond to roughly twice poverty have led 

many analysts to use twice-poverty as a benchmark. 

Moreover, there are important public programs that recognize this, including 

SCHIP, the public health insurance program for children. The vast majority of children living in families with incomes below twice poverty are eligible for the program. A moment’s reflection suggests that this is a stark repudiation of the official 

poverty threshold. Our government itself, to our credit, obviously recognizes the inadequacy of the official measure as a criterion for setting eligibility for families in 

need. 

Working Poverty 

In moving towards a more accurate approach to measuring poverty, the committee 

also needs to consider the increasingly important role of work among the poor and 

near poor. Though the share of the poor in the job market has not changed much 

over time, its composition has changed a great deal, with many more parents, especially single parents at work. It is also the case that low-income persons (family income below twice poverty) are working more hours than in the past, and, most importantly, a much larger share of their income derives from the labor market, including wage subsidies. Because more low-income parents (especially mothers) are 

working now than in the past, the share of children in working but poor families 

has climbed significantly. 

Most poor families have at least one worker: 61% of poor families had at least 

one worker in 2005 (4.6 million families); 71% of twice-poor families have at least 

one worker (14.4 million).17 Figure 2 shows that income from work (earnings plus 

the EITC) for low-income single mothers with at least two children rose from 45% 

of income in 1979 to 72% in 2000 (comparison made at business cycle peaks; Mishel 

et al, 2006, Table 6.11). This increase is a function of the steep growth in both the 

share of single mothers at work in the paid labor market, and in their annual hours 

worked. 

123 

18Though this is my analysis of CPS data, the figure is based on work done by the Congressional Research Service. 

As noted, these trends have meant that more low-income children have working 

parents. This is evident in Figure 3 which shows the percent of poor children in 

families with a working parent, 1979–2005.18 This share shot up in the 1990s, particularly among poor families with a single mother. Between the economic peaks of 

1989 and 2000, the share of poor children in homes with a working parent increased 

from 59 to 71 percent; for kids of single moms, the increase was from 42 to 61 percent, i.e., from a minority to a solid majority. 

Note also the steady decline in the 2000s, driven again by employment trends of 

single mothers (married mothers’ employment rates also fell over this period). The 

long jobless recovery and the weaker labor demand over the current recovery has 

been particularly damaging to these economically vulnerable families. As their labor 

market opportunities have diminished, their family poverty rates have gone up 3.2 

points, 2000–05, compared to 1.2 points for the overall family poverty rate. The 

problem for them relates closely to the observation that earnings, and benefits tied 

to earnings, have become much more important to the economic well-being of singlemother families. 


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In sum, recent experience has shown that these low-income working families depend on two forces to ensure that their living standards are rising. First, relative 

to more economically secure populations, they depend on tight labor markets and 

strong labor demand, compelling employers to provide the jobs and wage advancement they need. 

The second point links back to the measurement themes explored in this testimony. Even in the best of times, gaps will exist between what any working poor 

families can earn in the low-wage labor market and what they need to meet their 

basic needs, as discussed above. This implies an important role for work supports. 

Work supports are any publicly-provided resource that either boosts the earnings 

of low-income workers (like the EITC), or helps offset the cost of a family budget 

component, including subsidies for health care, child care, housing, and transportation. These supports play an important role in helping to close the needs gap, but 

their provision is not always guaranteed, and in the face of budget constraints, 

many states have cut back. At the federal level, the most recent budget offered by 

the president includes significant cuts in access to SCHIP—the health coverage program for low-income children and an important work support for low-income workers whose jobs often fail to provide family coverage. 

Given evidence provided in this testimony regarding the extent of low-income 

work, and the material needs of these families, strengthening the nation’s system 

of work supports would be a highly useful anti-poverty strategy. 

Conclusion 

Ours is a nation with one of the strongest, most productive economies in the 

world. Yet considerable poverty exists amid the plenty. By the official measure, one 

that most consider inadequate to the task of accurately measure material need, 

12.6% of our population, 37 million persons, are poor. As I have argued, a more accurate measure would show a greater share of persons in need. While one should 

not be dismissive of the political constraints pushing back against changing the official measure, its time has passed, and I urge the committee to begin taking steps 

to replace it with a better alternative. 

As I have shown, such alternatives have been developed by a team of researchers 

at both the Census Bureau and BLS, implementing the seminal work of the National Academy of Sciences. The advances in poverty measurement made by these 

analysts have the potential to vastly improve our knowledge and understanding of 

who is poor. 

Of course, measurement is a means to an end, and this committee has shown 

great interest is taking steps to address poverty amid plenty. Given the sharp rise 

in the number of children in working poor families, I have stressed the importance 

of ensuring that these families have enough to not simply pass the poverty threshVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:36 Jun 15, 2007 Jkt 035776 PO 00000 Frm 00128 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 E:\HR\OC\35776A.XXX 35776A

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19Deborah Weinstein, ‘‘What’s in the President’s Budget for Human Needs?’’ Coalition on 

Human Needs, 8 Feb 2007. Accessed 8 Feb 2007. 

old, but to meet their basic needs, as shown in the family budget literature. To this 

end, work supports, including wage subsidies along with subsidies for other basic 

needs such as housing, health and child care, and transportation, have proved vital 

in closing the gap between what low-income workers earn and what they need. 

I urge the committee to examine and strengthen this system. I urge members to 

fight back when components of the system are attacked, as with the inadequate 

funding of SCHIP in the president’s most recent budget proposal, a change that 

could lead to lost health care coverage for over 600,000 children.19

By updating our measurement tools and strengthening our system of supports for 

working but poor families, we can make important progress toward reconnecting the 

economic lives of the most vulnerable among us to that of the mainstream, a laudable goal indeed. 

The author thanks Ross Eisenbrey, Danielle Gao, Mark Greenberg, and James Lin 

for helpful comments and research support (Lin). Any mistakes are my own. 

Bibliography 

Allegretto, Sylvia. ‘‘Basic Family Budgets: Working families’ incomes often fail to meet living 

expenses around the U.S.’’ EPI Briefing Paper. 1 Sept. 2005. 

Bernstein, Jared. ‘‘Let the War on the Poverty Line Commence.’’ The Foundation for Child 

Development Working Paper Series. June 2001. 

Bernstein, Jared and Arloc Sherman. ‘‘Poor measurement: New Census Report on Measuring 

Poverty Raises Concerns,’’ Economic Policy Institute, 2006. http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/ib222. 

Besharov, Doug. ‘‘Poor America.’’ Wall Street Journal. 24, March 2006. 

Bureau of Labor Statistics. ‘‘At Issue: Tracking Changes in Consumers’ Spending Habits.’’ 

Monthly Labor Review. September 1999. 

Cassidy, John. ‘‘Relatively Deprived: How Poor is Poor?’’ The New Yorker. 3 April 2006. 

Fisher, Gordon M. ‘‘Relative or Absolute: New Light on the Behavior of Poverty Lines Over 

Time.’’ Newsletter of the Government Statistics Section and the Social Statistics Section of the 

American Statistical Association. Summer 1996: pp. 10–12. 

Fisher, Gordon M. ‘‘The Development and History of the U.S. Poverty Thresholds: A Brief 

Overview.’’ Newsletter of the Government Statistics Section and the Social Statistics Section of 

the American Statistical Association. Winter 1997: pp. 6–7. 

Glennerster, Howard. ‘‘United States Poverty Studies and Poverty Measurement: The Past 

Twenty-Five Years.’’ Social Science Review. March 2002. 

Holzer, Henry. ‘‘The Economic Costs of Child Poverty.’’ Testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means. U.S. House of Representatives. Washington, D.C. 24 January 2007. 

Johnson, David S., John M. Rogers, and Lucilla Tan. ‘‘A Century of Family Budgets in the 

United States.’’ Monthly Labor Review, May 2001. 

Mishel, Lawrence, Jared Bernstein, and Sylvia Allegretto. The State of Working America. 

Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007. 

Smith, Adam. Wealth of Nations. [1776] New York: Prometheus Books, 1991. 

Weinstein, Deborah. ‘‘What’s in the President’s Budget for Human Needs?’’ Coalition on 

Human Needs. 8 Feb 2007. 

f 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. I want to thank all of the panel. We 

will have time for one question apiece. Mr. Weller. 

Mr. WELLER. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

There is one question that I am going to ask be submitted for the 

record. Mr. Smeeding’s testimony presented by Mr. Burtless calls 

for about $120 billion in additional welfare spending, and I would 

be interested in knowing the specifics in that and, of course, under 

the PAYGO rules, where we would get that? So, I will ask for that 

in writing. 

[The information follows:] 

126 

February 28, 2007 

The Hon. Jerry Weller, Ranking Member 

Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support 

Committee on Ways and Means 

U.S. House of Representatives 

Washington, DC 20515 

Dear Representative Weller: 

I am writing in response to the questions you sent me on February 23, 2007. 

Those questions were related to the testimony I gave in behalf of Professor Timothy 

Smeeding on February 13, 2007, to the Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support. 

You asked specific questions regarding the policies adopted by the United Kingdom (U.K.) to reduce child poverty. Unfortunately, I am not an expert on British 

antipoverty policy. Professor Smeeding recommended two sources of information 

about those policies in the prepared testimony I delivered for him on February 13. 

One source, written by Jane Waldfogel and others, is ‘‘Family Expenditures Post 

Welfare Reform in the UK: Are Low Income Families Starting to Catch Up?’’ which 

appeared in Labour Economics in 2006. Another is by M. Francesconi and W. van 

der Klaauw, ‘‘The Socio-Economic Consequences of ‘In-Work’ Benefit Reform for 

British Lone Mothers,’’ which appeared (or will appear) in the Journal of Human 

Resources in 2007. I think these two articles describe British policies more accurately than I am able to do. 

You also asked about the cost of adopting the U.K. policies here in the United 

States. Professor Smeeding estimated that the U.K. policies increased British spending by 0.9 percent of the U.K. gross domestic product. An equivalent change in public spending in the United States would amount to about $120 billion per year according to his estimates. This is more than the United States now spends on means 

tested cash and near-cash assistance programs that are targeted on families with 

children (the EITC, food stamps, child-care support, and TANF). I do not interpret 

Professor Smeeding to mean that the United States ought immediately to expand 

cash welfare programs by $120 billion a year. Instead, I think he was trying to give 

Members and other interested readers an impression of the scope and expense of 

the U.K. effort to reduce its child poverty rate. If the United States were to undertake a similarly ambitious program to reduce poverty among American youngsters 

and hoped to achieve an equally impressive result as has been achieved by the U.K., 

we should not be surprised if the price tag is high. 

Speaking for myself, I believe the United States could achieve noticeable reductions in child poverty by offering more generous earned income supplements to the 

working poor than are now provided by the EITC. In particular, I think it would 

be desirable to offer a more generous schedule of EITC benefits to low-income parents who can demonstrate they are working steadily in full-time jobs (jobs where 

the work schedule is 32 hours a week or longer). This kind of reform has the potential to increase the earned plus unearned incomes of low-wage parents while simultaneously encouraging many of them to find and remain employed in full-time jobs. 

There is no such thing as a free lunch. More public spending for child poverty requires either higher taxes or lower spending on other public programs. Like many 

voters, I have a favorite list of government programs where I think less spending 

is both possible and desirable. In this brief letter it seems impractical, however, to 

offer a persuasive justification for the items on that list. 

I hope you find these answers responsive. 

Very sincerely, 

Gary Burtless 

John C. and Nancy D. Whitehead Chair 

Economic Studies 

Mr. Rector, several of Mr. Smeeding’s charts suggest the relative 

poverty in the United States today mostly resembles that in Mexico, and I was wondering: Can you tell us how he arrives at that 

conclusion and then also compare U.S. spending on assistance of 

the poor with other countries? 

Mr. RECTOR. Yes. That is the problem with the relative poverty 

measure, okay, that, in fact, you can produce these charts that 

show that Mexico and the United States have effectively the same 

127 

poverty rate when, in fact, the standard of living in the United 

States is five times higher, and so the bar for poverty in the United 

States is five times higher. 

In fact, poor people in the United States have upper middle class 

living standards by comparison to Mexico, and it is because what 

you are measuring there is inequality. You are not measuring poverty, and in his better days, Tim Smeeding actually acknowledges, 

well, there is a difference between poverty and inequality. They are 

not the same thing, but the relative poverty measure is simply 

measuring inequality. What is the standing of the bottom 10 percent compared to, say, the median household? In all of those comparisons, the United States is at a disadvantage because we are 

wealthier than European nations and certainly wealthier than 

Mexico. Therefore, the poverty standard in the United States is 

higher than it is in those other standards. Therefore, we have, by 

that measure, more poverty even though many of the poor people, 

according to that standard, will have higher incomes than, say, 

somebody in France who is judged not poor, okay? 

Now, you could say, even when you look at an absolute measure 

and judge everybody by the same standard, the United States still, 

in many cases, does not look that good or it looks worse than other 

European countries, but the difference is very small, and I would 

be happy to submit to the Committee standards that use an absolute measure that, in fact, show the United States has lower poverty overall when compared, say, to Sweden depending on how you 

do the measure once you put an equal bar, but the reality is that 

Sweden has an income that is about one-third lower than ours. 

Therefore, when you use a relative poverty measure, they essentially have an easier bar to pass. I think it does not tell you very 

much, and it certainly does not tell you about poverty. It does not 

tell you about physical deprivation. If you want to call this ‘‘inequality,’’ call it ‘‘inequality.’’ That is an accurate description of it. 

It is not a description of poverty. 

Mr. WELLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know time is short, 

and I will submit some additional questions in writing. Thank you. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you. 

I just want to ask—I am frustrated because I have got a good 

panel here, and I would like to have them fight and figure out 

what we are really talking about here. 

Is it that we need to call it ‘‘inequality,’’ and then we can say inequality is okay or bad or good or is there really poverty, and how 

do you two answer—Mr. Rector says there is not any poverty in 

this country except a very small number of people way down at the 

bottom. 

What is the answer to that? 

Dr. BERNSTEIN. If I could make, as quick as I can, a couple of 

statements. 

First of all, I very strongly disagree, and I think most economists 

would disagree with the statement that poverty should only be 

measured on an absolute basis, dismissing an inequality sense. 

This is a quote from Adam Smith, I think a pretty good economist 

to quote in this context. 

‘‘By necessities, I understand not only the commodities which are 

indispensably necessary for the support of life, but whatever the 

128 

customs of the country renders it indecent for credible people, even 

the lowest order, to be without.’’ 

It is the way they talked back then, but the point is that there 

has to be a relative standard that is embedded in the poverty 

measure so that we are also taking into account the material needs 

that are common, that are very much a part of the prevailing set 

of standards. 

Now, also getting to Mr. Rector’s point about—I can show you absolute measures that give you different results, the National Academy of Sciences and the Census Bureau, as I mentioned, are doing 

a really top-notch job of implementing these recommendations. 

They spend years figuring out the best way to improve our poverty 

measures, taking into account everything you have heard about on 

this panel today, and as I submitted in my written testimony, when 

you look at their measures—and they have got twelve of them— 

and you take an average, you will find that poverty is about 1 point 

to 2 points higher than the official measure. So, you can always 

cherry-pick and find a measure that shows you what you want, but 

this is a group of academics with no skin in the game, on either 

side of this debate in an ideological sense, coming forth with the 

best definitions that include both absolute and relative components. 

Ms. BLACKWELL. We should be fighting about the solutions, 

not about whether or not the problem exists. The first panel was 

really illustrative of what we see all across the country. We know 

that people lack the resources to be able to provide for their families in ways that I think we, as a people, think it means that they 

can live with dignity. Clearly, we have a poverty problem in America. We all saw how vulnerable people were when Hurricane 

Katrina hit New Orleans. We saw people who were poor, who were 

jobless, who were sick, who were isolated, who were at an extreme 

disadvantage. 

We actually have within our power the ability to do something— 

and Representative Weller made that very clear. We know what to 

do. We are not doing it. First, we need to make the investments 

that begin to pull people out of poverty, and then we need to make 

the investments that allow them to be able to thrive. 

Mr. BURTLESS. I think that Mr. Rector is right. If we had 

agreed on a ‘‘poverty’’ definition back in Abraham Lincoln’s Administration, the United States’ poverty thresholds would be very low. 

Poverty would be largely eliminated under a definition that we 

adopted in 1863. The standards that we currently have were developed based on U.S. consumption patterns in the fifties. Forty-five 

years has elapsed since then. If you ask Americans how they define 

‘‘poverty,’’ they might have in mind poverty in Mexico or poverty 

in India, but you ask them ‘‘how much does it take to get by in this 

country right now,’’ the amount they mention has gone up, more 

or less, in line with the rate of increase in median income. Obviously, they usually mention a lower threshold than the median income in the country. 

So, most Americans do not have the attitude that if we beat poverty under a definition that would have been adopted in 1860 or 

1900 or 1950, we have licked the poverty problem. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. So, is it fair to say, in summation, 

that you think Mr. Rector is saying we have licked poverty by a 

129 

standard that was set in 1955 or 1960 somewhere and that that 

standard really is the problem, if we looked at a present day standard that made sense with today’s economy, that then we have poverty? Is it? 

Mr. BURTLESS. I think the tip-off is saying, ‘‘How rich America’s poor people would look in Mexico!’’ Mexico is a country with 

one-fifth the income of the United States. I do not think we would 

be proud to hear we have conquered poverty under a definition that 

would be adopted in Mexico, China, or India. That achievement 

would not represent a solution to America’s poverty problem. 

Chairman MCDERMOTT. I am sorry. I have to bring this to an 

end because there is a Committee coming in here to talk about the 

earned income tax credit, which is part of this package. 

I want to thank you all very much for not only coming but staying until Mr. Weller and I could get back. You have made a real 

contribution to us, and we thank you for that. We will be in touch 

with you again. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 12:58 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

[Submissions for the Record follow:] 

Statement of Americans For Fair Taxation, Conyers, Georgia 

Poverty levels have for the longest time been measured in terms of relative income, and not on accumulated wealth.This method of measuring becomes flawed 

when millionaires or those who have achieved their economic goals, drop from the 

income making scene.According to the poverty equation, individuals like Ted Turner, Bill Gates and others, would be officially lumped into the ‘‘poverty level.’’ 

For this reason, income-earning Americans on the way up to meeting their financial goals, are labeled as ‘‘greedy,’’ or ‘‘filthy rich’’ monikers, while those with even 

greater means, are not.This has a negative effect on economic growth in the creation 

of jobs spurred on by the profits of high income earners. Overburdening this group 

has a negative impacton the economy and exacerbates the growth of outsourcing 

and the removal of jobs to the very people who most need them. 

The root culprit for the current and growing situation is our federal income tax 

system.It places undo burden on those that can help raise other individuals out of 

the poverty level, and at the same time, rewards those who have accumulated 

enough wealth to game the system.True tax reform such as H.R. 25, The Fair Tax, 

puts in place the very stimulus our economy and poverty level individuals need 

while placing the greater burden on those that can afford the tax.Removing our income tax system grows our economy by bringing manufacturing and other high paying jobs back on U.S. soil, and creates the income earnings potential to a far greater 

range of skill sets which puts many outsourced employees back to work.The problem 

of the rich getting richer while the poor get poorer is reversed, and a brighter economic future can be enjoyed by millions more American than our current course 

takes us. 

f 

Statement of Child Welfare League of America 

The Child Welfare League of America (CWLA), representing public and private 

nonprofit, child-serving member agencies across the country, is pleased to submit 

testimony to the Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support. We are 

pleased to submit our comments to the Subcommittee as we did with the full Ways 

and Means Committee last month. We recommend that statement for a more detailed analysis of the correlation between poverty and its significance to the child 

welfare system. 

This is an issue that requires more attention because there are far too many children and families struggling each and every day. As the wealthiest nation on earth 

we cannot be satisfied when we count 13 million children below the official poverty 

line. We should be even less satisfied when we calculate the human cost behind 

these numbers. The attention of this subcommittee following on the hearings of several other congressional committees including the full Ways and Means Committee 

and the attention to this matter by Chairman McDermott is greatly appreciated and 

130 

1Lieberman Research Worldwide. (1999, April). Assessing public opinion and perceptions regarding child abuse in America: Final report. Prepared for the Child Welfare League of America, 

Washington, DC. 2Parker, S., Greer, S., & Zuckerman, B. (1988). Double jeopardy: The impact of poverty on 

early child development. The Pediatric Clinics of North America, 35 (6), 1227–1240. 3 Ibid. 

needed. We look forward to working with you on this and related issues in the coming months. 

Parents and other caregivers require certain economic resources to provide their 

children with proper nutrition, adequate housing, and sufficient health care. Although economic resources provide no guarantee of a child’s healthy development 

or well-being, poverty is correlated with a wide range of negative outcomes that 

begin in childhood and can forever impact a child’s future.1 Children raised in poverty are likely to experience more risks and have fewer protective factors and resources than children living above the poverty threshold.2

It Is Not A Values Deficit 

On January 26, 2006 the ABC Network focused some needed attention on the subject of poverty in our country. Through the broadcast of ABC’s 20/20 and later on 

ABC’s Nightline, the nation was presented not with statistics or arguments but 

human faces on poverty. It was made all the more compelling because it focused 

on children. By tracing the lives of one young person and two children we saw the 

impact of poverty on some of the families of Camden, New Jersey. There was one 

observation during that broadcast that we would commend to this subcommittee 

and indeed to all policy makers. It was a comment by Dalton Conley, a sociologist 

who was interviewed for the broadcast. His observation is of special significance and 

that sums up this problem in a phrase: ‘‘There is a common perception that the 

problem with the poor folks in the United States is a problem with values. It’s not 

a values deficit at all; it’s really a resource deficit.’’ 

Some will want to ask why these poor families haven’t made different choices in 

their lives that would presumably remove or keep them out of poverty. The response 

is as basic as this; children don’t make choices, rather they are presented with their 

circumstances at birth. 

Many children raised in poverty begin their lives at a disadvantage because of inadequate prenatal care, poor maternal nutrition, or birth complications. They often 

also face a wide array of familial and other environmental obstacles, including low 

levels of parental education, increased levels of familial stress, poor social support, 

and limited community assistance. They may face the burden of unstable housing 

or homelessness. They may be growing up in a violent neighborhood. They may live 

in circumstances where pre-school and child care are not an option. 

Compared with other children, children living in poverty are more likely to experience difficulty in school and have a higher high school drop-out rate. Poverty during 

early childhood may be more damaging than poverty experienced later in life because much of the foundation for learning is built in the early years. Poor children 

score lower on measures of vocabulary, language skills, understanding of number 

concepts, organization, and self-regulation. In addition, children living in poverty 

are more likely to become teen parents, and, as adults, earn less and be unemployed 

more frequently.3

CWLA believes that as a country we must confirm our commitment to prevent 

child abuse and neglect and to support children who have been abused and neglected. A fundamental building block to reaching this goal is to tackle poverty 

head-on. 

POVERTY AS A NATIONAL ISSUE 

In August 2005, for a brief moment, the nation’s attention was focused squarely 

on the issue of poverty in America. Everyone’s eyes were glued to their television 

screens as the levees broke in New Orleans, Louisiana, and significant tragedy unfolded. Images of individuals and families trapped by floodwaters and testimony of 

those mourning the loss of loved ones, homes, and personal belongings destroyed 

any ideas of poverty as merely an illusion. This attention was unfortunately fleeting, however, and the commitments that had been made to address the poverty 

issue quickly faded. 

In fact, if you were living in Washington, DC, on that August 2005 day, you might 

have attended a forum hosted by the prestigious Brookings Institute that included 

a panel discussion interpreting the meaning of the new census data on poverty. As 

has been the case in other discussions and in other forums over the last several 

years, much of that discussion focused on how we measure poverty and whether or 

not it is as severe as some would argue. We will not continue that debate here beVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:36 Jun 15, 2007 Jkt 035776 PO 00000 Frm 00134 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 E:\HR\OC\35776A.XXX 35776A
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4 U.S. Census Bureau, 2005 American Community Survey. (2005). Data profiles: Selected economic characteristics. Retrieved January 23, 2007, from http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ 

ADPTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-qr_name=ACS_2005_EST_G00_DP3&-ds_name=&- 

redoLog=false&-format. Washington, DC: Author. 5 Ibid. 

6 Ibid. 

7 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Children, Youth, and 

Families. (2006). Child maltreatment 2004 (Table 2–1). Retrieved January 23, 2007, from 

www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm04/index.htm. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing. 

cause, in our view, poverty is severe and the United States is not doing enough to 

combat the issue. 

CWLA sees poverty as a serious matter that impacts individuals across the country and shapes the direction we are headed as a nation. Poverty touches on our economic preparedness, the effectiveness of our schools, the health of our nation, and— 

most significantly to CWLA—the welfare of our nation’s children. 

In 2005, the national poverty rate stood at 13%.4 For children under the age of 

18, the poverty rate was higher at 18%, which meant that approximately 12.8 million of our nation’s children were being raised in poverty.5 For children under the 

age of 5, the percentage was even higher at 21%.6 One out of five children in the 

critical child developmental period of 0 through 5, then, live in poor conditions that 

will certainly affect their chances at future success and well-being. 

THE POVERTY DEBATE CONTINUES 

We continue to have this debate about how serious poverty is in America. In a 

country where the average wedding costs $27,690, the equivalent of the poverty 

level for a family of six, we trivialize the debate and the significance of poverty 

when we measure how many poor families have televisions, video cassette recorders 

or cell phones. This type of analysis now used in 2007 is not unlike some of the 

debate in past discussions. In another decade some said that poverty was not real 

because, they argued, some welfare recipients owned Cadillacs. In reality far too 

many children will only realize a dream of a quality education, a safe neighborhood 

or a better income by watching it displayed in the latest situation comedy or reality 

show broadcast on their television. 

We are told how we can do better with the way we spend money and for that 

there is no doubt. No problem can be solved by merely throwing money at it, a truism that applies not just here with our domestic policies but can also apply when 

we carry out policies in other countries. But it is equally certain that too much 

money is not the problem. We hear a great deal about how we spend $600 billion 

in federal, state and local funds on anti-poverty programs but that figure is misleading since, for example, it takes into account our spending on Medicaid costs, a 

health insurance program. 

In 2005 national Medicaid spending totaled $305 billion. That figure calculates 

the cost of actual care not the cost of insurance premiums for the millions of people 

eligible for Medicaid. It counts a doctor’s treatment or perhaps the average hospital 

stay of 4.6 days at an average cost of $20,455. The $305 billion is not spent on an 

anti-poverty cash assistance program. Rather, 34 percent of it goes toward paying 

a person’s long term care costs in a country that has neither a long term care policy 

nor an insurance program specifically designed for it. So it includes the average cost 

of a nursing home stay at $65,700 per year. To simply argue that $600 billion is 

a great deal of money is to miss out on what our current anti-poverty efforts consist 

of, not to mention that fact that we continue to fail to address the health care challenge this nation has. 

POVERTY AND CHILD ABUSE 

According to the CWLA Standards of Excellence for Services for Abused or Neglected Children and Their Families, neglect is defined as ‘‘Failure of parents or 

other caregivers, for reasons not solely due to poverty, to provide the child with 

needed age-appropriate care, including food, clothing, shelter, protection from harm, 

supervision appropriate to the child’s development, hygiene, education, and medical 

care.’’ 

In 2004, the most recent data available, an estimated 3 million children were reported as abused or neglected and received an assessment or screening to determine 

whether or not there was evidence of abuse or neglect. Approximately 872,000 children were substantiated as abused or neglected.7

Of the 872,000 substantiated cases of abuse or neglect, 62.4% of these children 

experienced neglect, 17.5% were physically abused, 9.7% were sexually abused, 7% 

were psychologically maltreated, and 2.1% were medically neglected. Nearly threeVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:36 Jun 15, 2007 Jkt 035776 PO 00000 Frm 00135 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 E:\HR\OC\35776A.XXX 35776A
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8 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Children, Youth, and 

Families. (2006). Child maltreatment 2004. Retrieved January 23, 2007, from www.acf.hhs.gov/ 

programs/cb/pubs/cm04/index.htm. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing. 9Sedlack, A. J. & Broadhurst, D. D. (1996). Third national incidence study of child abuse and 

neglect: Final report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid. 12Gil, D. G. (1970). Violence against children. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 13 English, D. (1994). Risk assessment: What do we know? Findings from three research studies on children reported to child protective services. In Center for Advanced Studies in Child 

Welfare and the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, Children of the shadows—The state of 

children in neglecting families: Conference proceedings. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota; National Research Council. (1993). Understanding child abuse and neglect. In G. B. 

Melton & F. D. Barry, Protecting children from abuse and neglect: Foundations for a new national strategy (pp. 132–134). New York: Guilford Press. 14 Child Welfare League of America. (2006). Special tabulation of the Adoption and Foster 

Care Analysis Reporting System (AFCARS). Washington, DC: Author. 

quarters (or 72.9%) of child victims age 0 to 3 years were neglected—higher than 

any other age category.8

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is now working on the 

Fourth National Incidence Study (NIS) of Child Abuse and Neglect. The NIS is a 

congressionally mandated, periodic research effort to assess the incidence of child 

abuse and neglect in the United States. The NIS gathers information from multiple 

sources to estimate the number of children who are abused or neglected and to provide information about the nature and severity of the maltreatment, the characteristics of the children, perpetrators, and families, and the extent of changes in the incidence or distribution of child maltreatment since the previous NIS. 

In the third study issued in 1996, a significant correlation was found between the 

incidence of maltreatment and family income. It found that that 47% of children 

with demonstrable harm from abuse or neglect and 95.9% of endangered children 

came from families whose income was less than $15,000 per year.9

Children from families with annual incomes below $15,000 as compared to chil- dren from families with annual incomes above $30,000, were over 22 times more 

likely to experience some form of maltreatment that fit the study’s harm standard 

and over 25 times more likely to suffer some form of maltreatment as defined by 

the endangerment standard.10 Children from families in the lowest income bracket 

were 18 times more likely to be sexually abused, almost 56 times more likely to be 

educationally neglected, and over 22 times more likely to be seriously injured from 

maltreatment than children from higher income families.11

The stress created by living in poverty may play a distinct role in child abuse and 

neglect.12 Parents who experience prolonged frustration in trying to meet their family’s basic needs may be less able to cope with even normal childhood behavior problems. Those parents who lack social support in times of financial hardship may be 

particularly vulnerable. Parents who are experiencing problems with employment 

are frequently rated by child protective services staff as being at moderate to high 

risk of child maltreatment.13

POVERTY AND KINSHIP AND FOSTER CARE 

These findings suggest that we could help alleviate the flow of children into other 

parts of the child welfare system by addressing the core issue of poverty. For those 

children who are in care, the challenges and the issue of poverty are no less significant. As of September 30, 2004, 509,662 children were in foster care in the United 

States.14 Foster care, when it is the most appropriate service for a child, should provide a child with protection, care, and nurturance for a temporary period of time 

while services are provided to the child’s parents in order to deal with the problems 

that led to placement. 

When a child cannot remain in his or her own home, it is critical that the child 

welfare system work to provide that child with permanence. All children deserve to 

be a part of, or have a connection with, stability and families that are intended to 

be permanent. Family foster care and foster care services should emphasize safety 

and the well-being of children; recognize that the family is a fundamental foundation of child rearing; and acknowledge the importance of a comprehensive, child-centered, family-focused, culturally competent approach. To fulfill their vital role, then, 

public child welfare agencies need to ensure that children in care are protected and 

cared for and that they receive the services they need. The agency should also ensure that the families of the children in care receive services directed toward early 

reunification with their child or, as an alternative, another permanency goal. 

To meet these goals, it is clear that families must have the needed support to help 

foster children. According to the National Survey of America’s Families (NSAF), 

133 

15 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Children, Youth, and 

Families. (2005). CPS sample component wave 1 data analysis report. National survey of child 

and adolescent well-being. Washington, DC: Author. 16S. Census Bureau. (2000). Census 2000 summary file 1: Table P28, relationship by household type for population under 18 Years. Available from www.factfinder.census.gov. Washington, 

DC: Author. 17Main, R., Macomber, J. E., & Geen, R. (2006). Trends in service receipt: Children in kinship 

care gaining ground. Washington, DC: Urban Institute. 18 Child Welfare League of America. (2006). Special tabulation of the AFCARS. Washington, 

DC: Author. 19 Cook, R. (1991). A national evaluation of title IV–E foster care independent living programs 

for youth. Rockville, MD: Westat Inc. 20 Ibid. 21 Roman, N. P. & Wolfe, N. (1995). Web of failure: The relationship between foster care and 

homelessness. Washington, DC: National Alliance to End Homelessness. 

only 39% of out-of-home care provider families have incomes that place them beyond 

200% of the poverty level. Among all families—in-home, foster, and kinship—those 

involved with the child welfare system are five times more likely to have income 

at only 50% of the poverty level than families in the general population.15

Another significant and growing part of the child welfare system is the use of kinship care and kinship settings. By definition, kinship care is the full-time care, nurturing, and protection of children by relatives, members of their tribes, godparents, 

stepparents, or any adults who have a kinship bond with a child. This definition 

is designed to be inclusive and respectful of cultural values and ties of affection. Beyond its formal definition, what kinship care provides is an opportunity for a child 

to grow to adulthood in a familial environment. For many children, it is also a lifeline to a safe and productive future. It is, therefore, the type of care that we must 

nurture and promote in every way possible. 

Over six million children are living with a relative who serves as their caregiver, 

with approximately four-and-a-half million of these being grandparents. According 

to the last census, nearly two-and-a-half million grandparents report that they are 

primarily responsible for their grandchildren. The same census survey reveals that 

nearly 20% of these grandparents live in poverty.16

When Congress enacted the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) in 1997, it 

gave formal recognition to kinship placements as a permanency option even though 

that same act did not extend federal funding to these placements. The increased urgency that ASFA placed on the goal of permanency also influenced the increased 

use of kinship placements. These families are a vital support for millions of children 

and are a key to ensuring the safety and permanency, as well as the nurturing and 

well-being, of these children. 

According to an Urban Institute analysis,17 the poverty rate for children living in 

public kinship care or kinship care provided through the child welfare system is 

18%. That is the same as the overall child poverty rate for children under 18%. For 

private kinship care—those kinship families not coming through the public child 

welfare system—the poverty rate is 31%. When compared to non-kin foster parents, 

kinship families are much more likely to be low income (defined as 200% of the poverty level or lower), single, and older. In all instances, poverty certainly creates additional burdens and challenges for these families who have opened their homes and 

are providing a vital service to these children. If we continue to adhere to the goals 

of the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act and we recognize kinship placements 

as a permanency option as we should, we must provide accompanying federal financial support. 

YOUTH AFTER FOSTER CARE 

For too many older children in foster care the exit from the system will come only 

when they reach the age of 18. More than 22,000 young people leave foster care annually because they age out of the system.18 Although data is sometimes sparse, we 

know of common challenges for these young people from several studies. In one national survey, 25% of foster youth reported having been homeless at least one night 

in the two-and-a-half to four years after exiting foster care.19 In a national survey, 

only 54% of former foster youth had completed high school,20 and in another study, 

3 in 10 of the nation’s homeless adults reported a foster care history.21

FOSTER CARE AND EDUCATION 

Children and youth in foster care are also challenged when it comes to education 

outcomes. Placement in out-of-home care may create issues around mobility and stability in a child’s education arrangements. For example, a three-year study of youth 

aging out of care by Chapin Hall indicated that over one-third of young adults reVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:36 Jun 15, 2007 Jkt 035776 PO 00000 Frm 00137 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 E:\HR\OC\35776A.XXX 35776A
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22 Courtney, M. E., Terao, S., & Bost, N. (2004). Midwest evaluation of the adult functioning 

of former foster youth: Conditions of youth preparing to leave state care. Chicago: Chapin Hall 

Center for Children at the University of Chicago. 23Smithgall, C., Gladden, R. M., Howard, E., Goerge, R., & Courtney, M. (2004). Educational 

experiences of children in out-of-home care. Chicago: Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago. 24 Burley, M., & Halpern, M. (2001). Educational attainment of foster youth: Achievement and 

graduation outcomes for children in state care. Olympia, WA: Washington State Institute for 

Public Policy. 25 Courtney, M.E., Dworsky, A., Ruth, G., Keller, T., Havlicek, J., & Bost, N. (2005). Evaluation of the adult functioning of former foster youth: Outcomes at age 19. Chicago, IL: Chapin 

Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago. 26Pecora, P. Kessler, R., Williams, J., O’Brien, K., Downs C., English, D., White, J., Hiripi, 

E., White, C.R., Wiggins, T., & Holmes, K. (2005). Improving Family Foster Care: Findings from 

the Northwest Foster Care Alumni Study Alumni Study. Seattle, WA: Casey Family Programs. 27 National Child Welfare Resource Center for Family Centered Practice. (2003). Family centered child welfare. Washington, DC: Author. 28DeNavas-Walt, C., Proctor, B., and Hill Lee, C. (2006). Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2005. Current Population Reports (pp. 60–231). Washington, 

DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. 29 United States General Accounting Office. (2003, April). Child welfare and juvenile justice: 

Federal agencies could play a stronger role in helping states reduce the number of children 

placed solely to obtain mental health services. Report to Congressional Requesters (14). Washington, DC: Author. 30 Vandivere, S., Gallagher, M., and Anderson Moore, K. (2004). Changes in children’s wellbeing and family environments. Snapshots of America’s Families III, No. 18. Washington, DC: 

Urban Institute. 

ported five or more school changes.22 Another study of the Chicago school system 

(also by Chapin Hall) indicated that over two-thirds of children and youth included 

in the study had switched schools shortly after their initial placement.23 This kind 

of instability, along with the challenges of poverty, creates greater barriers to successful education outcomes. 

In fact if you watch the ABC 20/20 report you see the genuine impact one of the 

children featured who attends kindergarten on the first day and walks in without 

every experiencing pre-school or even basic child care. He is challenged and indeed 

scared by his surroundings and although he knows his threes he is challenged when 

asked to name the three times a day when he eats. 

That kind of a start on life, that start on education can have a lasting effect and 

is not a question of choices that adults make but the reality of limited options a 

child is given. 

A 2001 Washington state study is typical of other research in its findings, which 

showed that youth in foster care attending public schools scored 16 to 20 percentile 

points below nonfoster youth in statewide standardized tests at grades three, six, 

and nine.24 Over one-third of young people in a Midwest Study had received neither 

a high school diploma nor a GED by age 19, compared to fewer than 10 percent of 

their same-age peers in a comparable national sample.25 The Northwest Alumni 

Study found that of the foster care alumni studied, 42.7 percent completed some 

education beyond high school, 20.6 percent completed any degree or certificate beyond high school, 16 percent completed a vocational degree and 1.8 percent completed a bachelor’s degree. This completion rate for a bachelor’s degree compares to 

24 percent among the general population of the same age as those surveyed in the 

study.26 CWLA believes that these results offer strong evidence that efforts to improve the education outcomes for these children and youth in foster care must be 

a part of our national strategy to improve education and to reduce poverty. 

HEALTH STATUS OF CHILDREN AND PARENTS 

Children and parents living in poverty are less likely to have access to adequate 

health and mental health care. The lack of comprehensive health services for both 

children and parents increases entry into the child welfare system and makes it 

more difficult for children in the system to attain long-term health, stability, and 

permanency. 

The first three years of life are crucial to a child’s brain development and early 

mental health status.27 There are an astounding number of children living in poverty during this critical period. Moreover, the 2005 U.S. Census Survey reported 

11.2% of children as uninsured, despite widespread eligibility for Medicaid or 

SCHIP.28 Lack of health insurance or limited health insurance coverage contributes 

needlessly to an increasing number of children in the child welfare system with an 

unmet health need as well as placement of children in the child welfare system solely to obtain essential mental health services.29 Increased access to health and mental health care improves a child’s chance for permanency.30

135 

31DeBellis, M. D., Broussard, E. R., Herring, D. J., Wexler, S., Moritz, G., & Benitez, J. G. 

(2001). Psychiatric co-morbidity in caregivers and children involved in maltreatment: A pilot research study with policy implications. Child Abuse & Neglect 25 (7): 923–44. Chicago: The International Society for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect. 32McCarthy, J. (2003). Creating effective systems for mental health care and services. Best 

Practice Next Practice. Washington, DC: National Child Welfare Resource Center for Family 

Centered Practice. 

Poverty also correlates with increased rates of mental illness and substance abuse 

among parents,31 leaving them less ready to handle the stressors associated with 

raising children. The children of parents with substance abuse or mental health concerns are therefore more likely to be victims of abuse or neglect. Availability of comprehensive mental health care reduces caregiver stress and increases a child’s 

chance for healthy development and stable placement.32 Helping children to overcome the obstacles created by the presence of poverty in their early lives means increasing services to address the mental health and substance abuse treatment needs 

of these children and their parents. 

CWLA POLICY GOALS 

For a list of some of our immediate recommendations we refer the subcommittee 

to our testimony submitted to the Ways and Means Committee on January 24, 2007. 

What we seek and we believe all policymakers seek, is to more fundamentally address the issue of poverty. We cannot be caught up in a battle of statistics of how 

well we are doing as a nation. Instead we need to focus on the children who face 

the reality of being born behind all the rest of us. There is no simple solution or 

silver bullet that can fix all this. There needs to be a comprehensive approach that 

addresses all of the challenges that a child in poverty inherits on his or her first 

day of life. That solution involves more than making different choices. It is as we 

quoted before, not a values deficit but a deficit of resources. 

f 

Statement of Lary Wayne Holland 

THE breakdown of the traditional family should be studied closely as a potential 

cause of poverty. The various States have begun to utilize the various programs 

under Title IV of the Social Security Act, including Part D, as a tool to generate 

revenue for growing bureaucracies instead of a tool to combat poverty by providing 

only to needy families. 

The way the current Title IV–D program is being administered by the many 

States has led to taxpayers funding the breakdown of the family by making the incentives greater for separation than the incentives for marriage and jointly raising 

children in a traditional setting. 

Finally, there is a direct link between increased taxation and poverty. ‘‘Building 

a strong economy—and helping the poor—means keeping taxes and government 

spending low.’’ (Source: Mathew Ladner, ‘‘Want to reduce poverty? Lower those tax 

rates.’’ Christian Science Monitor [December 15, 2006].) 

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