The Welfare State Is a Poverty-Fighting Machine
Anyone who tells you the welfare state doesn’t reduce poverty is lying. Last year, even the United States’ tattered system of social provision cut poverty by two-thirds.
Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks during a news conference to announce legislation to expand Social Security, on Capitol Hill February 13, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Mark Wilson / Getty Images)
The Census released its 2018 poverty report last week, which showed no change in the poverty rate from the prior year. What follows is a novel rundown of the state of poverty and welfare in the United States based on my own calculations of the report’s underlying data.
The Tale of Two Measures
When you want to determine how much poverty is reduced by the nation’s welfare programs, what you normally do is determine how many people are in poverty based on the distribution of market income and then compare that number to how many people are in poverty when you include taxes and welfare benefits, i.e., the distribution of disposable income.
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