I read a Journal of Economic Perspectives paper by Hoynes, Page, and Stevens on poverty and economic growth in the United States.
The paper asks why the non-elderly poverty rate has barely changed since 1970, even though the economy has grown a lot. Using CPS, Census, and PSID data, the authors dig into how factors like gender, wages, family structure, government programs, immigration, and unemployment relate to poverty trends.
Their main finding is that weak wage growth and rising inequality at the bottom of the distribution are doing most of the work. More women entering the workforce helped reduce poverty, but that was offset by the rise in single-parent families. Immigration and government programs didn't really change the official rate. The unchanged poverty rate is really a labor market and family structure problem.
It's surprising that even with so many women entering the workforce, the poverty rate didn't drop, which shows just how strong the effects of family dynamics and inequality are. I also found it interesting that government programs helped in some ways but didn't really change the official poverty rate. That made me think about how the way we measure poverty shapes how effective policies look. The paper uses strong data and lays out the relationships between poverty, labor markets, and demographics clearly.
One thing I'd push back on is that the paper could have gone deeper into subgroups, breaking down women, immigrants, and minorities to see who actually benefits from economic growth and who gets left behind. That kind of detail would be more useful for policymakers trying to figure out where to target programs.
What I keep thinking about is families that leave poverty and actually stay out. Programs like TANF increase income for families in poverty, but they're mostly going to families well below the poverty line, so they don't move the rate much. And since the poverty rate is measured using pretax income, the impact of EITC doesn't show up in the numbers either. That makes me think post-tax programs alone aren't enough. Families right at the poverty line are the interesting case, whether income assistance or education programs can provide the push they need, and what kind of long-term support helps them stay out.