As many of you know, I’ve become the department evangelist for the utility, beauty and relevance of research methods. My goal has always been to convince you that properly using research methods in your own work can make your work stronger, better and more convincing. And, as you also know, I frequently find myself pointing out that many of our current debates in politics (whether in domestic or foreign policy) often have their roots in a question of research methodology. For that reason, considering research methodology issues can give us better insight into many current policy debates.
Today, I’d like you to stop and think for a few minutes about the following question:
How many poor people are there in America?
This question is undoubtedly of great importance to voters and policymakers. For many individuals, the question of who you vote for when the presidential elections occur might rest on this series of questions:
· Has the number of poor people in America gone up or down in recent years?
· Are there now more poor people in America than there were four years ago?
· Are there less?
· And is the American government doing enough to help poor people in America?
Presumably, if current economic and employment policies aren’t working then we would expect to see the number of poor in America to grow. Conversely, if our policies are working well, then we would expect to see a shrinking of the number of poor in America.
From a foreign policy context, we can go on to ask another question:
Is globalization leading to a decrease or an increase in the number of poor in America?
In the world?
Does globalization inevitably enrich people? Does it inevitably impoverish them?
As you consider this vast universe of questions we might ask about poverty, one thing becomes clear. First and foremost it would be a good idea to agree on a way of measuring just exactly who is poor in America. As we consider the contradictory findings of those who argue that poverty is growing, versus those who argue that actually it is decreasing, it’s certainly important to figure out if in fact these two groups of analysts are talking about the same thing. In short, until we consider how we measure and define poverty, there’s really no point in trying to answer any of the other questions. (You knew we would wind up here, didn’t you?)
Now this is where it gets interesting from a policy standpoint. You might have been shocked, as I was this morning, to encounter the following headline: Half of All Americans are now Poor or Low-Income. It sounds bad, doesn’t it? It sounds as though clearly the US has failed as a nation if it cannot even manage to take care of or feed half of its people! The headline evokes visions of mass causalties and starvation, doesn’t it?
But take a few minutes and read the article for yourself. What you’ll see is that in 2009, the government REDEFINED a couple of key terms: Namely, it created a new term, known as “low-income individuals.” Apparently, anyone who makes less than twice as much as the official poverty cut-off line is now defined as a low income individual. Here’s a link to the numbers used to calculate who is low-income in America.
This does leave us with an interesting mathematical dilemma: Namely, the fact that the median household income in America for a family of four is now around 50,000 dollars, while a family of 4 making 33,000 a year would be classified as low-income. It appears that by raising the threshold of who is defined as poor, it is now possible to make the middle class segment of the population look smaller. But you have to ask yourself – is this “just math” as President Obama claims, or is it more akin to the process of “lying with statistics”?
Here, a positivist would argue that household income is the best way of measuring and classifying individuals according to whether they are low, medium or upper class. However, others might point out that poverty is not exclusively a measure of income – rather, one would have to look at what the day to day lived experience of being low income in America is like. Here, one could argue that it is not merely one’s monthly income that defines the experience of poverty – Rather, one would have to ask how one’s life is affected by living in a low-income neighborhood – presumably one with failing schools, gangs and violent crime. (Thus, if we redefine “low income” and measure it differently so that many who fall into the ‘low income category’ actually do not live in low income neighborhoods but are rather: twentysomethings living at home with their parents in a suburban neighborhood where they have access to cable TV, the internet and a refrigerator full of Haagen-Dazs; retired individuals in good neighborhoods whose homes are paid off, or even military families with a large number of children who live on a safe military base with excellent schools – does the designation even make sense?)
The US is not alone in thinking critically about how poverty is defined. Here’s an article about an initiative in China to redefine standards for rural poverty. This change in measurement would result in a new figure which is four times larger than the old one. It would quadruple the number of individuals who are now defined as impoverished! Here, at least, the Chinese are forthright, admitting that they want to redefine entitlements – That is, they have consciously decided that people who do not have access to health services, electricity and running water deserve to be classified as poor and to be the subject of government policies to improve their living standards.
Overall, the normative implication of the poverty debate in both nations seems to be that if people are poor, it is because the government or their communities have failed them in some way. There is a minimum standard of living which people are entitled to by virtue of being human. Respecting the dignity of all persons thus means acknowledging the suffering of those in need and responding to it. To do less than responding to someone who is dying or starving is unconscionable and immoral. As a Christian, I agree wholeheartedly with that stance.
However, as we’ve seen here, what’s interesting (and controversial) is how we define what that minimum standard should be, and who can thus be truly classified as being in need. And this leads into my final point – which has to do with the universality or generalizability of a measure of poverty. In other words, are American poverty statistics basically meaningless to everyone outside of the United States? A researcher from the Heritage foundation says yes. You see, the World Bank defines someone as poor if they live on less than one dollar and fifty cents a day. By that standard, you might argue that no one in America is poor – since the ‘low income wage’ of 33,000 a year is actually ONE THOUSAND TIMES that of an impoverished person, according to the World Bank. (The Heritage folks also have a bit of fun – pulling up statistics on how many “impoverished” Americans have: colored TV’s, air conditioning, a refrigerator, a computer printer and so forth. This is a Heritage trademark, and I remember helping to compile these same statistics for them back when I interned there during the Reagan Administration.)
This question clearly has ethical and moral implications for us as Christians as well. Do we give our own charitable contributions to those who are dying abroad or do we give our contributions to those in our communities who are, arguably, “merely poor”? And how do we advocate for the poor when the category of those defined as poor is so very broad? As this article shows, these questions are a point of contention even among Christians. As we think about how to share the gospel of Christ with our brothers and sisters throughout the holiday season, we may begin to realize that sometimes there are no easy answers. Nonetheless, I welcome your thoughts.
