Politicians And MSM Claim U.S. Spends Less On Child Poverty Than Most Other Developed Nations - FAKE NEWS
David A. Cook CoffeeShop Weekly November 24, 2019
. A liar knows that he is a liar, but one who speaks mere portions of truth in order to deceive is a craftsman of destruction.
-Unknown
In May of 2018 the Washington Post reported that The U.S. spends less on children than almost any other developed nation. They went on to say:
The federal government now spends less than it did about 30 years ago on some of the country's poorest children, the result of cuts to federal welfare programs, according to a new research paper.
In 1990, the government spent about $8,700 on every child whose family took in no income from work. By 2015, accounting for inflation, it spent less than $7,000 on children from these impoverished families, the paper calculates.
Much of the drop was driven by cuts to direct welfare payment programs, which once went to 76 percent of poor families with children but now goes to 23 percent of them.
Federal spending on all children, when measured as a portion of the economy as a whole, has increased since the 1990s, but it has not grown quickly enough to keep the United States from falling behind other countries with similarly developed economies.
To read this is makes America seem extremely callous toward poor and needy children. There just one problem, this isn't true. To show you an example of the slight of hand the Post uses they state that:
The small increase in U.S. spending on childhood programs comes in large measure from multiple expansions of the Earned Income Tax Credit, a tax credit tied to work that has increased more than fivefold since the 1990s. That tax credit has helped reduce child poverty in America, although one in seven children — or 11 million of them — still remain in poverty. (Some estimates have put the number higher.)
The Post is suggesting that we are doing a little which has caused a small increase in spending but there are still 11 million children in poverty. The report they reference shows a fuller picture.
In 2016, the federal government spent about $200 billion on such programs, and they had a substantial impact on reducing childhood poverty.1 Including the value of government tax and transfers reduces child poverty from 25 percent (no taxes or transfers) to 15 percent (current law) (Shapiro and Trisi 2017)—lifting 7.4 million children out of poverty, yet 11.1 million remain in poverty.
Simply math wil tell you that is a 40% reduction. But you would never assum that reading the Post.
The Washington Post isn't the ony entity dispersing disinformation. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said that, "The U.S. has the highest child poverty rate of almost any country on Earth." Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) claimed our country has "The moral obscenity of having the highest levels of child poverty in the industrialized world." These statements are not just untrue they are outright lies.But then if you believe that the United States is not a great or even good nation one could come to this conclusion without the need for facts.
Speaking of facts, Angela Rachidi of the American Enterprise Institute, says that claims of child poverty in the United States are grossly overstated. She authored a study that challenges the abover reports.
Federal expenditures on low-income children have increased dramatically in recent decades, challenging the misguided view that the US has a weak social safety net for children. These spending increases have especially targeted three key areas of support — health, refundable tax credits, and nutrition support — through means-tested programs. Federal spending on health, nutrition, and refundable tax credits for low-income children was almost nonexistent in 1960, but has since increased 17-fold, surpassing all other categories by 2018, with the exception of tax reductions stemming from the dependent deduction.
Increased federal spending is one explanation for why child poverty rates are at historic lows in the US, along with a strong economy and policies that encourage work among parents. Only 10.8 percent of US children were below the poverty line in 2018 compared to 32.9 percent in 1980, according to a consumption-based poverty measure. A similar pattern was found using an income-based measure, with the child poverty rate at 30 percent in the 1980s compared to 15.6 percent in 2016. However, our success in the battle against child poverty cannot be attributed solely to an increase in federal dollars going toward this cause. Policies that support work, family, and strong communities also play a crucial role.
Pushing back against the Post's assertions as well as thoughs such as Sander;s and Booker, Rachidi states:
International comparisons that consider the full range of child spending show that the US spends as much, if not more, per child than other countries such as Belgium, Germany, Canada, France and the United Kingdom. As a percentage of GDP, the US spends more on children than Germany, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands.