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Undated: Poverty is a state of deprivation, lacking the usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions.[1] The most common measure of poverty in the U.S. is the "poverty threshold" set by the U.S. government. This measure recognizes poverty as a lack of those goods and services commonly taken for granted by members of mainstream society.[2] The official threshold is adjusted for inflation using the consumer price index.
Most Americans will spend at least one year below the poverty line at some point between ages 25 and 75.[3] Poverty rates are persistently higher in rural and inner city parts of the country as compared to suburban areas.[4][5]
Estimates of the number of Americans living in poverty are nuanced. One organization estimated that in 2015, 13.5% of Americans (43.1 million) lived in poverty.[6] Yet other scholars underscore the number of Americans living in "near-poverty," putting the number at around 100 million, or nearly a third of the U.S. population.[7] Starting in the 1930s, relative poverty rates have consistently exceeded those of other wealthy nations.[8] The lowest poverty rates are found in New Hampshire, Vermont, Minnesota and Nebraska, which have between 8.7% and 9.1% of their population living in poverty.[9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States
-- 2017 --
May 22: Trump’s Budget Cuts Deeply Into Medicaid and Anti-Poverty Efforts
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/22/us/politics/trump-budget-cuts.html
May 25: Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson [who was appointed by President Donald Trump and confirmed to his Cabinet post in March] said in an interview Wednesday that having "the wrong mindset" contributes to poverty. ... "I think poverty to a large extent is also a state of mind ... "
http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/24/politics/ben-carson-poverty-state-of-mind/index.html
December 15: Poverty in US set to increase due to Donald Trump's policies, says UN official
Already dismal poverty rates in the US are set to worsen under President Donald Trump, a top UN official has said. Currently, one in eight people in the US lives in poverty.
https://www.dw.com/en/poverty-in-us-set-to-increase-due-to-donald-trumps-policies-says-un-official/a-41819961
-- 2018 --
February 12: White House wants to deliver food to the poor, Blue Apron-style ... Think of it as Blue Apron for food stamp recipients.
That's how Budget Director Mick Mulvaney described the Trump administration's proposal to replace nearly half of poor Americans' monthly cash benefits with a box of food. It would affect households that receive at least $90 a month in food stamps, or roughly 38 million people.
Consumer advocates, however, questioned whether the federal government could save that much money by purchasing and distributing food on its own. Also, they were concerned that families would not know what food they would get in advance nor have any choice regarding what they receive. Plus, it could be difficult for families to pick up the box, especially if they don't have a car.
http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/12/news/economy/food-stamps-box-blue-apron/index.html
February 13: Welfare for the Wealthy ... Republican administrations always cut taxes on the rich to cut benefits for the poor.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/02/trumps-budget-is-welfare-for-the-wealthy.html
February 27: San Diego pays homeless people to pick up trash in new program
The homeless people, who are staying at the city’s tented shelters, will be cleaning up trash and clearing brush in downtown San Diego for five hours a day, FOX5 San Diego reported. The program, called Alpha’s Project’s “Wheels of Change,” will pay participants $11.50 an hour and expected to hold cleaning shifts three days a week.
“This is all about creating more opportunities for homeless individuals to lift themselves out of extreme poverty,” Mayor Kevin Faulconer said. “‘Wheels for Change’ will help restore dignity by allowing people to earn a paycheck and begin to get back on their feet. For many, this may be just the chance they need to begin turning their lives around.”
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/02/27/san-diego-pays-homeless-people-to-pick-up-trash-in-new-program.html
April 11: Trump’s Executive Order On ‘Welfare’ Doesn’t Do Anything — At Least Not Yet ... The order is more about messaging than policy in the short term.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday that ostensibly cracks down on loafing among welfare recipients.
The order itself will have no immediate effect on any program or benefit. Like many other executive orders before, all it does is direct agencies to review their policies and eventually make suggestions.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trumps-executive-order-on-welfare-doesnt-do-anything-at-least-not-yet_us_5ace3446e4b0701783aa7b31
May 18: The House of Representatives failed to pass a massive farm bill Friday as Republicans were unable to shore up support from their conservative members amid an ongoing party-wide fight on immigration, rebuking GOP House leaders' who had predicted it would pass just minutes before.
The conservative-driven bill -- which included the work requirements that Ryan has coveted and pushed for -- was, at least for now, dead, sunk not because of its actual content, but because of immigration, an issue that has roiled the Republican Party for years.
[Republicans] didn't have Democrats backing the legislation. Democrats rejected the farm bill out of opposition to those work requirements Ryan sought in the food stamps program, formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/18/politics/farm-bill-house-agriculture-food-stamps-snap/index.html
June 2: America's poor becoming more destitute under Trump: U.N. expert
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-rights-un/americas-poor-becoming-more-destitute-under-trump-u-n-expert-idUSKCN1IY0C3
June 28: Donald Trump’s Poverty Denial
A fight over a report from the United Nations on the American poor further reveals the administration’s aversion toward welfare and public-assistance programs.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/donald-trumps-poverty-problem/563960/
July 20: Trump declares victory in war on poverty in order to punish the poor
To the long list of lies President Trump thinks he can make true just by repeating them (“The largest audience ever,” “North Korea has agreed to denuclearization,” “I didn’t criticize the prime minister”), we can now add this: “Our war on poverty is largely over, and a success.”
That’s the verbatim conclusion of a new study produced by Trump’s Council of Economic Advisors in order to justify new work requirements on Medicaid, public housing, and food stamp recipients. Never mind that 32 percent of all Medicaid dollars go to nursing home patients, and nearly half of food stamp recipients are children — neither population likely to punch a time clock anytime soon. And never mind that able-bodied adults without children already must work for their food stamps. The Trump administration is gunning for federal safety net programs, and if it takes denying the existence of 45 million Americans in poverty to rationalize their disintegration, so be it.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2018/07/19/trump-declares-victory-war-poverty-order-punish-poor/wQtPhmXSRdCafM2pt2X6XJ/story.html
August 4: Trump Administration Tries To Deny U.S. Poverty With Misleading Numbers
https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2018/08/04/trump-administration-tries-to-deny-u-s-poverty-with-misleading-numbers/#33de24326daa
August 22: The Trump Administration Says Poverty Barely Exists and Measuring It Is ‘Arbitrary’
According to a recent Trump administration report, when poverty is “properly measured,” less than 3 percent of Americans are poor. If that sounds like a dramatic underestimation to you, that’s because it is—the comparable Census Bureau estimate is four times higher. That’s the difference between saying there are about 11 million people with below-poverty incomes in the United States (about the population of Georgia), or 44.8 million (roughly the combined populations of Georgia, New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia).
https://talkpoverty.org/2018/08/22/trump-administration-says-poverty-barely-exists-measuring-arbitrary/
September 18: The poverty rate isn’t something that Trump claims as a turnaround — or talks much about. A recent report from the U.S. Census Bureau shows the official poverty rate dropped 0.4 percentage points in 2017 to 12.3 percent. This marks the third consecutive annual decline, having fallen 2.5 points since 2014. Again, the trend that formed during Obama’s last years continued through Trump’s first.
And, as we’ve noted before, scholars increasingly believe that the official poverty estimate is a bit misleading and not especially informative. This is in large part because transfer payments — like the Earned Income Tax Credit or food stamps — are not recorded as income, so their impact isn’t incorporated into the official figure. To assuage these concerns, the Census Bureau introduced a second poverty measure in 2011 — the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM). (This also has critics.) The SPM is declining at a slower rate than the official poverty rate, dropping 2.2 points since its peak.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/09/18/trump-economy-versus-obama-economy/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a4f56d6ec38b
December 20: Trump administration puts squeeze on food stamp recipients
The move comes just weeks after lawmakers passed a $400bn farm bill that reauthorized agriculture and conservation programs while leaving the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as Snap or food stamps, which serves roughly 40 million Americans, virtually untouched.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/20/trump-administration-food-stamps-snap-regulations
December 21: Happy Holidays from the Trump Administration
Work requirements [for the poor] ... mean that people lose Medicaid, and when people lose Medicaid, they can’t afford to go to the doctor. Not only will these punitive measures complicate the lives of people in extreme poverty, they also create a real problem for several new governors. In Kansas, Michigan and Maine, Republican governors applied for waivers that would allow them to attach strict work requirements to Medicaid. In November, those three states elected Democratic governors, and at least one, Maine governor-elect Janet Mills, has said she’ll “review” the work requirements once she takes office in January. In Wisconsin, where Verma had already approved work requirements for Medicaid, incoming Democratic governor Tony Evers has said he’ll try to withdraw them altogether. It’s not yet clear, though, what legal options exist for Evers, Mills and their Democratic peers; whether they’ll be able to revoke these new regulations swiftly, whether the process will take time, or whether they’ll be able to do it at all. It’s a fitting parting gift to these newly-elected Democrats from the Trump administration, which vehemently supports work requirements despite – or perhaps because – they just deepen poverty.
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/donald-trump-ruins-the-holidays.html
December 22: President Donald Trump is spreading misinformation about U.S. economic growth, the Russia investigation and the Islamic State group in Syria.
He and his advisers are declaring a “record” drop in U.S. poverty last year where none exists, and “very strong” capital spending next year due to Trump administration tax cuts. In fact, capital spending is projected to slow, probably dampening economic growth.
https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2018/12/22/ap-fact-check-trumps-record-poverty-drop-flynns-lies
-- 2019 --
-- 2020 --
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