Liars Figure

The folks at the Economic Policy Institute have been looking over the latest US Census Bureau's latest report on poverty. They noticed something disturbing:

The Census Bureau recently unveiled new
alternative poverty measures “intended to provide
a more complete measure of economic wellbeing.”
The new poverty measures, which
produce poverty rates as much as one-third below
the official poverty rate, contain some features
that have been characterized by poverty experts
and past Census reports as flawed or incomplete.

The EPI report, POOR MEASUREMENT: New Census Report on Measuring Poverty Raises Concerns, by Jared Bernstein and Arloc Sherman, is available as a PDF download (230KB).

The report shows how the Bureau is departing from previous practice. The result is that they report a lower incidence of poverty than would be shown using the previous method. Their "more complete" method actually leaves out important information. Hmmm, I wonder why they are doing that?

posted by : Joseph j7uy5 | link | | |
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