The personal website of Matt Henderson.
02 April 2013
Eye opening comments on American poverty statistics from Philip Greenspun
How many American households suffer in poverty? It might be twice as many as you think. If a man and a woman live in the same crummy apartment with their two biological children, a layperson would walk by and count one poor household. The expert economists at the Census Bureau, however, upon finding that the man and woman are not married, count two households. The father is one household. The mother and the children are a second household. Both are “living in poverty”. What if the man and woman each had a low-wage job and they were to get married? Now the two “poor” households would become one “not in poverty” household.
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