WASHINGTON - Who is poor in America? This is not an easy questionto answer, and the Obama administration would make it harder.
It's hard because there's no conclusive definition of poverty.Low income matters, though how low is unclear.
Poverty is also a mindset that fosters self-defeating behavior -bad work habits, family breakdown, out-of-wedlock births andaddictions.
Finally, poverty results from lousy luck: accidents, job losses,disability.
Despite poverty's messiness, we've tended to measure progressagainst it by a single statistic, the federal poverty line.
It was originally designed in the early 1960s by MollieOrshansky, an analyst at the Social Security Administration, andbecame part of Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty.
She took the Agriculture Department's estimated cost for a bare-bones - but adequate - diet and multiplied it by three. That figureis adjusted annually for inflation.
In 2008, the poverty threshold was $21,834 for a four-memberfamily with two children under 18.
By this measure, we haven't made much progress.
Except for recessions, when the poverty rate can rise to 15percent, it's stayed in a narrow range for decades.
In 2007 - the peak of the last business cycle - the poverty ratewas 12.5 percent; one out of eight Americans was "poor." In 1969,another business cycle peak, the poverty rate was 12.1 percent.
But the apparent lack of progress is misleading for two reasons.
First, it ignores immigration, which has increased reportedpoverty.
Many immigrants are poor and low-skilled. From 1989 to 2007,about three-quarters of the increase in the poverty populationoccurred among Hispanics - mostly immigrants, their children andgrandchildren.
The poverty rate for blacks fell during this period, though itwas still much too high (24.5 percent in 2007).
Poverty "experts" don't dwell on immigration, because it impliesthat more restrictive policies might reduce U.S. poverty.
Second, the poor's material well-being has improved.
The official poverty measure obscures this by counting only pre-tax cash income and ignoring other sources of support.
These include the earned-income tax credit (a rebate to low-income workers), food stamps, health insurance (Medicaid), housingand energy subsidies.
Spending by poor households from all sources may be double theirreported income, reports a study by Nicholas Eberstadt of theAmerican Enterprise Institute.
Although many poor live hand-to-mouth, they've participated inrising living standards. In 2005, 91 percent had microwaves, 79percent had air conditioning and 48 percent had cell phones.
The existing poverty line could be improved by adding some incomesources and subtracting some expenses (example: child care).
Unfortunately, the administration's proposal for a "supplementalpoverty measure" in 2011 - to complement, not replace, the existingpoverty line - goes beyond these changes.
The new poverty number would compound public confusion.
It also raises questions about whether the statistic is tailoredto favor a political agenda.
The "supplemental measure" ties the poverty threshold to what thepoorest third of Americans spend on food, housing, clothes andutilities. The actual threshold - not yet calculated - will almostcertainly be higher than today's poverty line.
Moreover, the new definition has strange consequences.
Suppose all Americans doubled their incomes tomorrow, and supposethat their spending on food, clothing, housing and utilities alsodoubled.
That would seem to signify less poverty.
But not by the new poverty measure. It wouldn't decline, becausethe poverty threshold would go up as spending went up.
Many Americans would find this weird: people get richer but"poverty" stays stuck.
What produces this outcome is a different view of poverty.
The present concept is an absolute one: The poverty thresholdreflects the amount estimated to meet basic needs.
By contrast, the supplemental measure embraces a relative notionof poverty:
People are automatically poor if they're a given distance fromthe top, even if their incomes are increasing.
The idea is that they suffer psychological deprivation by beingfar outside the mainstream.
The math of this relative definition makes it hard for people atthe bottom ever to escape "poverty."
The new indicator is a "propaganda device" to promote incomeredistribution by showing that poverty is stubborn or increasing,says the Heritage Foundation's Robert Rector.
He has a point. The Census Bureau has estimated statisticssimilar to the administration's proposal.
In 2008, the traditional poverty rate was 13.2 percent; estimatesof the new statistic range up to 17 percent.
The new poverty statistic exceeds the old, and the gap growslarger over time.
To paraphrase the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan: theadministration is defining poverty up.
It's legitimate to debate how much we should aid the poor or tryto reduce economic inequality.
But the debate should not be skewed by misleading statistics thatnot one American in 100,000 could possibly understand.
Government statistics should strive for political neutrality.
This one fails.
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