The bleak face of U.S. poverty

“Bleak Portrait of Poverty Is Off the Mark, Experts Say,” blared the Friday headline in the New York Times. The traditional strategy for measuring poverty, we were told, did not include the benefits of federal programs like food stamps and tax credits that were helping to keep Americans above the poverty line. A new, “supplemental measure” from the U.S. Census that took such factors into account would reveal that many Americans thought to be living below the poverty line were actually above it — “as much as half of the reported rise in poverty since 2006 disappears,” declared the Times.    Read More