[PEN-L:747] Re: RE: Re: re-redefining porverty

[Rosser Jr, John Barkley]

     The item that is arguably among "necessities" that has 
gone way up since Mollie Orshansky's original calculations 
in comparison to both food and other items is housing 
costs, not surprising given that recent poverty has 
manifested itself most dramatically in sharply higher rates 
of homelessness.
    Over a decade ago, Robert Greenstein recalculated on 
the basis of that and argued that the poverty rate cutoff 
should be four times the minimum necessary food budget.  
Needless to say that way increases the poverty rate.
     The usual offsetting argument has been that of 
increasing in-kind benefits not taken into account.  Of 
course conservatives have tended to pounce on that and have 
published lots of papers claiming that the poverty rate has 
fallen because of all the extra in-kind benefits.  Last 
stuff I've seen is that taking the Greenstein critique into 
account along with the in-kind benefits critique leaves the 
"official poverty rate" in place as not too bad an estimate.
Barkley Rosser
On Thu, 29 Oct 1998 09:35:35 -0800 Michael Perelman 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> 
> 
> Max Sawicky wrote:
> 
> > Robert Rector at Heritage Foundation turns the argument
> > upside down:  if the food budget is only 20 percent of
> > consumption costs now, then the poverty level should be
> > reduced.
> 
> I would like to see an estimate of the cost of keeping a job, and how much it
> has increased over the years relative to the cost of food.  To keep a job today
> requires, in many cases, ownership of a car, suitable clothing ....  I suspect
> that such costs have been escalating quite a bit.
> --
> 
> Michael Perelman
> Economics Department
> California State University
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Chico, CA 95929
> 530-898-5321
> fax 530-898-5901
> 

-- 
Rosser Jr, John Barkley
[EMAIL PROTECTED]