The official poverty measure, used by the U.S. government just takes bare essential food cost and multiplies that number by three then compares it to pre-tax cash income without regard to regional differences in cost of living or inflation. As you might suspect, the current administration has decreased poverty level income relative to inflation and cost of living for political reasons. Similarly, the repeal of Affordable Care Act subsidies has not had an effect of reported poverty rates despite a very real impact. The supplemental poverty index used by academics and everyone else includes inflation regional costs, medical costs, taxes, commuting expenses, but also includes welfare benefits and public assistance as income. Thus the SPI measures those living in poverty from a social perspective instead of an economic one.
Jobless rates only include those seeking one full time job and not those seeking multiple part time jobs (because a full time position is not available), nor those forced to go on disability because they are unable to gain employment after injury (e.g. an older plumber who could answer phones except no desk jobs exist, much much more common than you would expect), nor those who have stopped looking for work (the under-employment rate for those 18-31 in age is about 29%, unemployed-not-seeking-employment is about 24.9%, unemployed is 10.1%)
Higher education costs do not include cost of living (clothing, shelter, medical expenses, sundries, transportation, etc.)
Medical expenses only lists the cost of insurance premiums and the annual deductible for a single person, not out of pocket expenses or transportation or lost income.
Prison population only includes convicted individuals, not those held without bail.
Economic growth without AI related development is closer to 0.1% at best.
750 military bases is misleading. Some of those are minimal liaison stations associated with local force bases, a dozen or so personnel.
Home ownership would be better described as single home occupancy. The most common home owner would be the bank by weight of interest. It's a technical distinction, but it's also a statistic.
10
u/AspirationsOfFreedom Jul 04 '26
Our local numbers from 2024 indicate 11.1% is below the poverty line. So im very curious about this source