The New Supplemental Poverty Measure

Howdy Poverty News Blog readers!  Joseph here - sorry for the lag in updates.  Kale is out of the game for awhile with the family, and in juggling workloads, I've let the updates here slide a little bit.  So I'm working on fixing that, and also am being thankful for Ed Dolan, who kindly commented on the post regarding the new Census information.

Ed Dolan has a blog over at the EconoMonitor, and with a two part post he talked about the Census Bureau's new Supplementary Poverty Measure:

Understanding the New View of Poverty (1): The Erosion of Stereotypes

"Overall, the SPM does not give us all that many more poor people—16 percent of the population in 2010, compared with 15.2 for the old measure. The surprises come in how that poverty is distributed among the population..."

Understanding the New View of Poverty (2): What Helps and What Hurts

"The most important contribution of the SPM is to show that key federal antipoverty programs that official data omit play a big role in the lives of people living at or near the poverty level..."

Big thanks to Ed Dolan for the heads up and the well written articles.

Bill Gates on Aid During Economic Crisis

Last week, Bill Gates addressed the G20 Summit in France to discuss the subject of Aid - specifically about sustaining aid during severe economic crisis.  He pressed the importance of equality while acknowledging the current economic difficulties in Europe.

Bill Gates Addresses G20 Summit On Maintaining Aid During Economic Crisis

"Gates acknowledged the current economic crisis in Europe, but raised awareness of the importance of equality – that every human life in the world is worth the same, everyone deserves access to healthcare and every life is worth saving – and that a price can’t be put on humanity..."

Guatemala - President-Elect Otto Perez Molina Inherits Poverty and Crime

This week saw the election of a new president to Guatemala - General Otto Perez Molina.  The election campaign was fraught with violence and electoral law violations.  Despite all that, and the road ahead, General Otto Perez Molina may by the most well equipped man to handle Guatemala's poverty and crime issues.

President-elect Otto Pérez Molina inherits poverty, crime issues in Guatemala

"The president-elect does in fact confront a difficult situation (El Nuevo Herald, Telesur, NYT). Over 50 percent of the population lives in poverty...On the other hand, President-elect Pérez Molina probably has more going for him than President Alvaro Colom did upon taking office..."

Concentrated Poverty - US

Another book is making it's anniversary next year, this one to be the 25th for the book The Truly Disadvantaged, by William Julius Wilson in which he "described how racially isolated inner-city neighborhoods with extremely high levels of poverty perpetuated mutually reinforcing cycles of joblessness, crime, broken families, and dysfunctional schools."  This article - with respect to Wilson's works - talks about a report that was released last week on concentrated poverty.

The Resurgence of Concentrated Poverty

"The most important finding is that the remarkable progress made against concentrated poverty in the prosperous 1990s was squandered in the past decade..."

Book set to Rethink Fight Against Poverty Wins Book of the Year

Almost fifty years ago The Other America, written by Michael Harrington, set to change how American Society viewed it's poor.  That book was one of the most influential sources in sparking the war on poverty.  Today, we see books and people coming out trying to rethink what poverty means and how we can finally solve it.  These types of awards makes me think that we are on the verge of a new War on Poverty - perhaps this time we will win.

MIT's Banerjee, Duflo Win $48,000 FT/Goldman Sachs Book Prize

"Addressing topics from health to education, the authors build a shrewd yet sympathetic portrait of a problem as complex as those individuals who make up the all-too-often stereotyped poor..."

US to Define New Poverty Formula

The formula being used to calculate the poverty line in the US is about to be updated.  Aside from the issues of reducing people to a series of equations, I'm skeptical - especially after watching India's issues with this - that the redefinition of 'the poverty line' will do good.  In fact I could see it going either way.

To define poverty, US has a new (and improved?) formula.

"Until this month, the poverty line has been calculated the same way for half a century. It was developed in 1964 as part of Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. Ever since, a debate has ensued about how to determine who’s truly poor..."