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Each September, the U.S. Census Bureau releases new data revealing how many people in the country are living in poverty. But what does that number really tell us, and how should it shape the choices we make as a nation? Lisa Gennetian, the Pritzker Professor of Early Learning Policy Studies at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy, follows the data closely each year. She joins host Anna Gassman-Pines to explore how poverty is measured, what the latest figures reveal about American life, and how evidence can inform better public policy.
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Is Poverty a Choice?
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Conversation Highlights
Responses have been edited for clarity.
On what surprises people about poverty statistics
One striking thing over time is that we see that the poverty amongst the elderly is pretty low, it's under 10 percent, and it's been pretty flat for decades. That might not feel like big news but think about what our economy has gone through in the last few decades, and elderly poverty does not shift in response, so there's something that we're doing that is really protecting the elderly. Child poverty is almost double the rate of elderly poverty and it goes up and down - as low as 5% and as high as 30% for some populations. That instability says something about the economic stability of where children are living and how their households are doing.
Is poverty synonymous with not working?
I think a lot of us, when we look around our community and imagine, "Who are the poor people in my community?” - we are maybe thinking about people who aren't working or aren't working enough, but that's not actually right. The reality is that the far majority of people that fall within the poverty threshold are working. So, I think we need to sit with the fact that there are lots of working people in the U.S., working parents in the U.S., who do not have enough income to get them above the poverty line.
On the importance of the federal poverty statistics released in September
Poverty statistics tell something about the distribution of resources. Let's think about it in the following way: who is winning and who's not? Who's benefiting from a robust economy and who's not? Who are jobs growing for? Who's losing jobs? And what's in place for the people who are trying to find a job but either can't find a job or a can’t find a job that aligns with other responsibilities like caregiving.
On what might change the public’s understanding of poverty
One thing I was thinking about is that individuals receive report cards related to other types of behavior, like electricity bills. It could be like, "Hey, did you know that your electrical use was all at peak time last week?" And that kind of feedback actually changes people's behaviors.
Is there a version of that that could be related to government poverty statistics? Like a simple old-fashioned mailing that's like, "Hey, here's the amount of poverty in your county.” Just making it a little bit more personal, a little bit more, "These are people in your everyday life."
On policy and poverty
Cash can really be helpful: more income, direct income, to families. There are many countries where the public acknowledges it's important for kids to grow up healthy, it's important for our society to have healthy children, that raising children is expensive, and so we have an interest in helping families raise children. And cash I think really helps parents make the kind of choices for their families that they're trying to make.
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about policy 360
Policy 360 is a series of policy-focused conversations. This episode is hosted by Anna Gassman-Pines, Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. New episodes premiere throughout the academic year. Guests have included luminaries like Nobel Peace Prize Winner Maria Ressa and former director of the World Bank Jim Yong Kim, as well as researchers from Duke University and other institutions. Conversations are timely and relevant.