What You Don’t Know About Poverty

Summary

Optimist Economy Podcast: Episode Summary – "What You Don’t Know About Poverty"

Release Date: August 5, 2025
Hosts: Kathryn Anne Edwards and Robin Rauzi
Title: What You Don’t Know About Poverty

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Introduction and Overview

In this compelling episode of Optimist Economy, hosts Kathryn Anne Edwards and Robin Rauzi delve deep into the multifaceted issue of poverty in the United States. With a commitment to dismantling prevailing misconceptions, the duo aims to provide a nuanced understanding of poverty, its causes, and potential solutions. The episode is structured to challenge commonly held beliefs, supported by data and insightful analysis, fostering an optimistic yet realistic outlook on economic reform.

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Dispelling Myths About Poverty

1. Poverty as a Permanent Underclass

At [13:35], Kathryn addresses the pervasive myth that there exists a "permanent underclass" of individuals who are perpetually poor. She emphasizes that poverty is often a temporary state for a significant portion of the population. Citing data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Kathryn explains that 34% of households experience at least one spell of poverty over a four-year period. This challenges the notion that poverty is an enduring condition for a specific group, highlighting instead its transient nature influenced by factors like job loss and income volatility.

Kathryn [15:00]: "When you fall into poverty, about half of people will get out before the year is up. It’s a risk, not a permanent state."

2. The Misconception That Poor People Don’t Work

Robin and Kathryn tackle the false belief that individuals living in poverty are primarily non-workers or lazy. Kathryn elaborates at [21:08] that 35% of working-age adults in poverty are employed, with 2 million working full-time and 5 million working part-time. The misconception overlooks the complexities of income volatility and the instability of low-wage jobs, which often lack benefits and security.

Kathryn [22:14]: "Income volatility means your income isn't predictable month to month, which happens if you have irregular hours or transition between jobs."

Additionally, Kathryn dispels the stereotype by highlighting that many non-working individuals in poverty are dealing with disabilities or caretaking responsibilities, not a lack of willingness to work.

3. Poverty as Being Dependent on Government Assistance

The third myth discussed is the belief that the majority of poor individuals rely solely on government assistance. At [27:25], Kathryn reveals that only about 4.5 million of the 20 million working-age adults in poverty receive cash assistance from government programs like TANF, SSI, or SSDI. This statistic counters the narrative that the poor depend heavily on government handouts.

Kathryn [27:25]: "Not even one in four are getting cash from the government of any kind."

She further explains that while programs like Medicaid and food stamps assist many, they do not cover the majority of the impoverished population, leaving a significant gap in support.

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The Impact of Economic Policies on Poverty

Kathryn and Robin critically examine recent economic policies and their effects on poverty. A significant portion of the discussion around [12:55] focuses on the cuts to Medicaid, estimating that 7 million people could lose their Medicaid coverage due to newly implemented work requirements. This policy shift disproportionately affects those already vulnerable, exacerbating the challenges faced by individuals in poverty.

Kathryn [16:26]: "Poverty is a risk, and a third of Americans face it over a four-year period. It’s pervasive and affects many more people than we realize."

Furthermore, Kathryn reflects on the child tax credit, highlighting its effectiveness in reducing child poverty when it was in effect. The abrupt termination of this credit led to a significant rebound in child poverty rates, underscoring the potential of targeted financial support in alleviating economic hardship.

Kathryn [35:00]: "Turns out if you give parents money, they spend it on food and shelter, which are the essentials. It’s not just a band-aid; it’s a stabilizing force."

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Strategies for Reducing Poverty: An Optimistic Approach

The hosts advocate for a multifaceted approach to tackle poverty, emphasizing systemic changes over individual blame. Kathryn proposes two primary strategies:

1. Direct Financial Support: Implementing policies similar to the child tax credit, which provides consistent financial support to families, ensuring their basic needs are met and reducing income volatility.

   Kathryn [32:24]: "There are two ways to fix poverty. One of them is the band-aid, which is giving money directly, and the other is systemic reform."

2. Systemic Reforms: Enhancing disability benefits, expanding paid family leave, and creating more robust support systems for caretakers. Kathryn stresses the importance of addressing income volatility by stabilizing low-wage jobs and ensuring that social welfare systems are responsive and comprehensive.

   Kathryn [38:00]: "We could do so much to even out income volatility for people, giving them more stability and reducing the frequency of poverty spells."

Robin echoes this optimism by highlighting the potential for policy innovations to create a more resilient economy that supports individuals during times of economic distress.

Robin [39:31]: "If we had less income volatility, we’d have more bandwidth as a society to deal with other pressing issues."

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Real-World Applications and Personal Reflections

Throughout the episode, Kathryn shares personal anecdotes and reflections, such as her experience with the Institute for Research on Poverty, providing a grounded perspective on the academic and practical aspects of poverty research. She underscores the necessity of making poverty an approachable and understandable issue, dispelling the notion that it is elitist or insurmountable.

Kathryn [10:35]: "Poverty needs to be approachable and fun, making it less of a stigmatized issue and more of a universally understandable challenge."

Additionally, the hosts briefly touch upon social topics and lighter discussions, like executive orders and recycling practices, adding a relatable and engaging element to the episode.

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Conclusion and Call to Action

In wrapping up, Kathryn and Robin reiterate the importance of viewing poverty through a lens that recognizes its systemic roots rather than attributing it to individual failings. They advocate for evidence-based policies and collective societal efforts to create an economy that lifts all individuals, especially those most vulnerable.

Kathryn [39:55]: "If you think of poverty as a result, you'll get to the cause. If you think the cause is the person, you're not going to be that effective."

The episode concludes with an invitation for listeners to engage with the hosts, submit questions, and participate in ongoing discussions aimed at fostering economic optimism and equitable growth.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Kathryn [13:35]: "There is not a permanent underclass. Poverty is a risk, not a permanent state."
• Kathryn [22:14]: "Income volatility means your income isn't predictable month to month, which happens if you have irregular hours or transition between jobs."
• Kathryn [27:25]: "Not even one in four are getting cash from the government of any kind."
• Kathryn [32:24]: "There are two ways to fix poverty. One of them is a band-aid, which is giving money directly, and the other is systemic reform."
• Robin [39:31]: "If we had less income volatility, we’d have more bandwidth as a society to deal with other pressing issues."
• Kathryn [39:55]: "If you think of poverty as a result, you'll get to the cause. If you think the cause is the person, you're not going to be that effective."

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Final Thoughts

"This episode of Optimist Economy" serves as an enlightening exploration into the realities of poverty in America, challenging entrenched stereotypes and advocating for compassionate, informed policy solutions. Through data-driven analysis and heartfelt discussion, Kathryn and Robin provide listeners with a critical understanding of poverty's transient nature and the systemic changes needed to create a more inclusive and resilient economy.

For further discussions, resources, and to engage with the Optimist Economy community, visit optimisteconomy.com or reach out via email at [e-mail].

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Support the Optimist Economy podcast by becoming a paid member here or buying them a coffee.

Transcript

[Kathryn]

Pull yourself up out of your bootstraps. You need to fix your mom. Hello, and welcome to Optimist Economy. I'm Kathryn.

[Robin]

I'm Robin.

[Kathryn]

On this show, we believe the US Economy can be better, and we talk about how to get there one problem and solution at a time. We have a website, optimisteconomy.com we have an email address, optimist.eacremail.com I know we just recorded the question and answer episodes, but we will always take your questions and.

[Robin]

And sometimes we'll answer them.

[Kathryn]

Sometimes we'll answer them, or we'll just save them like squirrels gathering acorns. For our next question and answer episode, on optimisteconomy.com you can find our buy me a coffee page to give us money, which we desperately need, or subscribe to our substack, where you can keep in touch and also give us money, which, circling back, we still desperately need.

[Robin]

Just looping back on that, I'm just.

[Kathryn]

Gonna circle back to that. I mean, consider for a moment, y', all, that, like, if we're this awkward asking people who like us for money, can you imagine how well we're doing with, like, rich donors?

[Robin]

Yeah, yeah. No, we'll get there. We'll get there.

[Kathryn]

We'll get there. We'll get there. We're gonna get there.

[Robin]

And I really. I should point out that there are actually hundreds of you who have given us money in, and it's really heartening, and it really is making a difference for us.

[Kathryn]

So thank you, Optimist. We cannot thank you enough. Every little dollar amount. It's not just how much it supports production of the show, but just how reaffirming it is for Robin and I that we're talking into a microphone, but we are connecting with people, and so it means a ton. Now, we don't want to play favorites, but someone did give money to the show with the note. My estate attorney shall be in touch. Signed, Jeff Bezos's son. And I do think the best part was that who wrote this didn't bother looking up Jeff Bezos son, and neither did we.

[Robin]

So that was excellent.

[Kathryn]

Yeah, that really made my day. My estate attorney will be in touch. Thank you so much, y'. All. So, again, I don't even think that person gave us, like, he didn't give us a Jeff Bezos type donation, but it was the. What he really gave us was affirmation and a very good laugh.

[Robin]

Yeah. And don't we all need that these days?

[Kathryn]

Okay. Retcon.

[Robin]

Oh, I actually had an announcement.

[Kathryn]

Oh, Yep.

[Robin]

Which I put in the outline. John 5. No, I just wanted to add that we have on Substack, we have an optimist chat. And so if you are a paid subscriber on Substack, you can join our chat room. It's like a group chat of other optimists, and we took some people's questions from there. But also, it's just, you know, if you're looking for a place to vent after the show, feel free to go there.

[Kathryn]

Absolutely. Wait, so now. Right, Khan.

[Robin]

Oh, wait. I wanted to say one other thing.

[Kathryn]

God. Oh, come on. Really? I feel like I've got the outline pulled up, and I'm just like, I'm ready to stay on task.

[Robin]

Let me talk. I haven't talked yet. I haven't talked enough. Cryoni. Okay. No, all I wanted to say is somebody suggested we put all of the executive orders online, and I did that. That's a.

[Kathryn]

That's so cool. Sorry, I didn't know that you did that. That's my genuine reaction. Wait, so can we vote on them?

[Robin]

Do you want to. What do you want? You want other people to vote on them?

[Kathryn]

We should vote on them and see. We could have some, like, maybe some type of, like, upvote scenario to see, like, what is the most popular executive order? Because I'm like, leaf blowers. It's got to be leaf blowers.

[Robin]

I'm not saying that Substack is a very simple rudimentary platform, but it kind of is. I'll see if we can do that.

[Kathryn]

Okay.

[Robin]

Okay. First up is Retcon. Yes, Retcon stands for retroactive continuity for our new listeners. And this is where we reflect on things that we said in previous episodes. And this week, we're looking back at our minimum wage episode.

[Kathryn]

First, Retcon about the minimum wage has to do with the state of Missouri. We referenced in the last episode that it has raised its minimum wage above the federal. And its senator, Josh Hawley, is leading the Republican effort to raise the federal minimum wage, which, of course, Robin and I have complex feelings about. However, I mischaracterized and said that it was the legislature that had raised the wage, and it was certainly not. That was put in a voter referendum that carried with 57%, and it also included paid sick days. So Missouri voters in, you know, a not small majority voted for a higher minimum wage and paid sick days, and they are currently in a very complex legal fight of the legislature is trying to walk it back, veto it. I think the minimum wage and the paid sick days they're on set, separate tracks of being overturned from the popular vote.

[Robin]

That's optimistic.

[Kathryn]

I mean, okay, there is some optimism here that Missouri voted for paid sick days. Right. These are popular policies, sick days and.

[Robin]

A higher minimum wage.

[Kathryn]

Yes. We are not talking about, like, some kind of, like, crazy fantasy world that three people agree with. Like these. These subjects that we talk about are often supported by the vast majority of Americans.

[Robin]

Yeah. Larger. Larger majorities than a lot of major legislation has passed by. Certainly.

[Kathryn]

And just the final part of that retcon is that I said, last time, Holly went back book, and like, there he goes. Just went back down again.

[Robin]

And I think the other thing that we didn't say is that the Higher Wages for Americans act is in fact indexed to go up in future years according to the Consumer Price Index for Urban Workers or something. It's a very specific. It seemed very specific to me, but maybe you know what it is.

[Kathryn]

There's dozens of price indices that you can use. So this is the cpiu, but it.

[Robin]

Is indexed to prices, not to wages, which is one of the things we talked about.

[Kathryn]

Yeah. Okay.

[Robin]

Okay. Terms and conditions is next.

[Kathryn]

I have a goofy one.

[Robin]

Yeah. What'd you look up?

[Kathryn]

I looked up the phrase the worm has turned. I was commissioned to write an article for a magazine, and the editor sent it back to me with edits that included the insertion of the phrase the worm has turned. And I was like, what? I certainly hadn't written that because I have no idea what that means. And it means it's used to talk about a situation that can suddenly change so that a person who has been weak, unlucky, unsuccessful, can become strong, lucky, successful, etc. I don't have the OED. I don't get to tell you guys on the journey that went from a worm has turned to the weak person is now strong. I mean, we can fill it in. Feels like Middle Ages. I don't know. I'm just gonna. I'm gonna. We can actually guess. I'm gonna say that this is a Middle Ages thing. It's gonna be farming. It might involve cruelty to children or people. Because it's like. I'm gonna say book.

[Robin]

I'm going to text Amy right now and say, look up the worm has turned. Yeah, look up the worm has turned.

[Kathryn]

All right, well, we're going to look up where the worm has turned has come from. And then next episode. Tune in to the thrill.

[Robin]

We're going to have this answer before this. We're done recording. Amy's going to be My spiritual sponsor. If she finds this out. Needed in an hour. We had a term, a term and condition request from Dustin Edwards, who's a listener and subscriber to our show, about the phrase blue sky. I think this might be because you talked about your blue sky report on child development. There were these things called blue sky laws, and not to be confused, by the way, with just blue laws. So blue laws are basically about selling alcohol and not selling alcohol on Sundays in particular. Blue sky laws were. Was a term from the earliest, early 20th century that banned selling things that were worthless, like stock in the blue sky. Right. Selling things that had no value and they were. So blue sky laws are consumer protection laws, but specifically related to financial markets.

[Kathryn]

Awesome. What a great origin. Thank God.

[Robin]

Yeah, but that's not related to the origin of the idea of a blue sky policy or blue sky research. Blue sky research means basically to think about ideas without consequence. And it was kind of initially used a little negatively, but has become very positive to imagine things that are fanciful or hypothetical, maybe not particularly practical, but also without limit and brainstorming and without dealing with the nitty gritty of implementation. Or clouds in the sky, metaphorically.

[Kathryn]

And, Dustin, in D.C. policy circles, it comes up when you want to talk about a policy and you don't want to have to talk about how politically unpalatable it is in the current moment. It's a way to be like, can we do blue sky? Like, I don't want to hear about how, like, Republicans have the super majority and so therefore, like, we'll never have childcare. Right. Like, this problem needs to be fixed. And so let's talk about how we're going to fix it and not how we're going to sell it. That's how it comes up in, in my world a lot is it's code for, like, please, I don't want to talk about the current Congress.

[Robin]

Right, Right.

[Kathryn]

So this could have been a. This could have been another name for our show. Instead of Optimist economy, we could have been Blue sky economy.

[Robin]

It's true. But I think a social media company took that.

[Kathryn]

Okay, sure. I see now. I see now. Optimus. The centerpiece today is poverty, and we're talking about poverty in America. And I want to preface this by saying that when I was in grad school and getting my Ph.D. there was a very staid research institute at Wisconsin called the Institute for Research on Poverty, and they were taking applications for graduate fellows. And this opened the path for mentorship and funding. And so I put in this really thoughtful application. And I got in. I was very excited. And I asked the director of the Poverty Institute. I was like, you know, I'm just. I'm really glad that y' all accepted me. And she's like, well, we try not to, like, turn people away from poverty. She's like, you can see the optics of trying to make poverty elitist, you know? And she's like. And nobody really cares about it, so.

[Robin]

We'Re trying not to. We are the only applicant.

[Kathryn]

We try to make it seem like people who earnestly care about poverty aren't good enough. Cause we really need more. More people in this space. And I was like, oh, okay. That's a really good point. Poverty needs to be approachable and fun.

[Robin]

Do you think. What's. What? You said you're like, poverty's fun. And I was like, not if you're.

[Kathryn]

In it, but okay, sure, sure, that part. But, yeah, at the start of every class, I used to teach a graduate class on poverty. And the first lecture, I was always like, y' all are going to have a lot of fun here. Which I know sounds bad, but, like, I can't make this too depressing, or none of you would study it or bother to learn about poverty in the U.S. and trust me, you don't know anything about it. And all the stuff you do know is really wrong. So let's just make this a positive good time. I'm sure some of them were. I mean, I'm sure that the students in my class thought I was insane. Maybe not as I'm carrying through the mantle of, like, who's excited about poverty? I think just the optics are bad enough that you have to go all the way back around of, like, leaning.

[Robin]

Just lean into how absurd that sounds. Is that what you're saying? Yeah.

[Kathryn]

Yeah.

[Robin]

Yeah. Well, I think. I mean, my guess is you're right, that people don't understand poverty. I'm sure I don't understand a lot of facets of poverty. So, you know, here we go. Let's talk about things that you think you know about poverty that you do not.

[Kathryn]

Yes. So I think there's three things.

[Robin]

Take a buzzfeed. It's like a buzzfeed article.

[Kathryn]

It's a listicle.

[Robin]

It's a listicle.

[Kathryn]

It's a buzzfeed. Lipstick with gifts. The poverty listicle. That's gonna haunt me. So, yeah, we wanted to talk about poverty because so much of social and economic policy in the US Is either directly or indirectly passing judgment on poor people. So the one big, beautiful bill Cut a trillion dollars from Medicaid. And most of those cuts were concentrated amongst what we call the expansion population, which was the people who were brought into Medicaid coverage in states that had expanded Medicaid eligibility. And the way that they are all going to lose their coverage is through work requirements. And Mike Johnson himself, the speaker of the House, said work is good for you. You find dignity in work. People who don't work, we're going to get their attention. And that was how he described cutting Medicaid. So that is a blatant judgment that these are lazy people and an assumption.

[Robin]

That the people getting Medicaid don't work.

[Kathryn]

An assumption that they don't work. But I think it goes back to the misconception that people have of poor people, which I'll say poverty and poor people somewhat interchangeably. But the misconception people have is really threefold. First, that there is a permanent underclass of poor people in the United States. They're born poor, they've always been poor. Boys will be poor, their parents were probably poor, as their children will be. It's like this group of poor people, they exist kind of in perpetuity. The second misconception is that these people don't work. And the third misconception is they don't have to work because they're living off the government.

[Robin]

Right.

[Kathryn]

And I think something like Johnson's comment of like, we're going to get these people's attention is very telling of like, he basically thinks there's a bunch of people living off the fat of the land that is government spending and that they should go out and get a job. So each of those three things are categorically wrong. In fact, it's not even that they're a little wrong, they're mostly wrong. They're so non descriptive of the actual population in poverty that it to me reads like lying.

[Robin]

Are we gonna go through these one at a time? Okay.

[Kathryn]

Okay.

[Robin]

Are you ready?

[Kathryn]

Yes. Okay, so part one.

[Robin]

Permanent underclass.

[Kathryn]

Permanent underclass. The set of people who exist who are poor that are separate from the rest of us. Not true at all. The way to understand this is, is to understand that poverty in the United States, poverty everywhere, is a very simple function of I'm going to decide an income level below which you are poor, and then I'm going to look at your income and see if you were poor or not poor.

[Robin]

That's how economists do it.

[Kathryn]

And Census Bureaus.

[Robin]

And Census Bureau. Okay, yeah.

[Kathryn]

So when we count who is poor in the United States, we're essentially counting resources that go into a household and then determining if they are above or below a threshold that we have agreed.

[Robin]

Means poor, which is the poverty line.

[Kathryn]

Yes. Which is we refer to as the poverty line or the poverty threshold.

[Robin]

Right.

[Kathryn]

And it's just an income level below which your house is deemed to be poor. The income level varies with the number of people. So for one person, it's about $16,000 a year. For two, it's 21. For three, it's 25. For four, it's 32. I rounded just so it would not be quite as confusing to read off all those dollar amounts. But the specific poverty line also varies by whether or not the people in your household are over 65 or under 18.

[Robin]

Children and elders are less expensive.

[Kathryn]

Yeah. The amount of money to keep people out of poverty varies by their age, and that goes into the poverty line calculation. So the poverty line is actually about like 50 numbers that we apply to your household income based on what your household looks like. If you ever wanted to know anything about poverty in the United States, the first place you would go is the U.S. census Bureau Poverty desk, because they are charged with officially counting poverty in the US and then they do probably some of the best research in the country about it. So they looked at monthly poverty. So if you take these like $16,000 a year and put it into a monthly amount of income, you can look at the actual duration of a poverty spell. If someone becomes poor, how long do they stay poor? And so they basically said, okay, assume that a poverty spell to be an actual spell has to be at least two months. Let's look at 48 months of income for tens of thousands of households. Over that time period. Just 2% of households were poor in every month and 34% of households were poor at least one spell.

[Robin]

Oh, that is fascinating. Yeah.

[Kathryn]

So the danger of saying things like poverty is a permanent underclass is not just like taking this relatively rare population and making them into a caricature of all people, but it is ignoring the fact that poverty is a risk and it's a that a third of Americans face over a four year period. It's so much more pervasive and so many more people fall into it. So when you fall into poverty, about half of people will get out before the year is up.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Kathryn]

Now if you're shocked to hear this, you should know that this is something that we've known for a very long time. If you looked at women on welfare back when we still had welfare entitlements, this is also what welfare recipiency looked like. Same type of cultural myth that women are on it and they turn 16 and have a baby to get on it and then like their daughter gets on it at 16 and it's a bunch just like multi generational teenage mom.

[Robin]

Baby Ponzi scheme.

[Kathryn]

It's a baby Ponzi scheme. And when they want to buy something, they have another baby so they get more welfare always been a lie, always been contested by data that showed poverty is a function of labor market volatility, People losing their jobs, people falling out of work, and it ends when they find a job. Now that was a four year monthly study. So they had 48 data points. Another set of researchers did something similar, but they looked at 10 years of annual income from IRS tax returns. So now they're going to do the same thing. They're going to look at households. What share of households had an income tax filing in which their income was below poverty? And it's 4 in 10.

[Robin]

It's not that dissimilar, I guess. Would you say 34% on the, on that other study, but 4 in 10 had a year where they were at poverty levels or below poverty levels?

[Kathryn]

Yeah. And I mean the things that are associated with a big drop in income are typically job loss and family dissolution.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Kathryn]

So you're in a two earning household or you're in a one earning household, but you're the non earner and you get divorced or someone leaves or someone moves out, someone loses a job. I mean it's truly just there's less money flowing into a household.

[Robin]

Right, right.

[Kathryn]

And for what it's worth, I talk a lot about poverty on my social media channels where I try to do a lot of not like myth busting so much as like, why don't we bring some receipts about what's actually going on? And I've always been overwhelmed by the number of people who will write in the comments their own of like, man, my mom left my dad and like we had to get on food stamps and like we barely ate but, but we got out of it. That's the modal experience. I mean, in some ways I, what, what bothers me so much about this misconception is that like y', all America is really resilient. American households are incredibly resilient. The number of people who fall down and pick themselves up is such a success of our economy. I mean, not great that our economy sends so many down, but amazing that so many people pop back up.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Kathryn]

And it's, it's almost in spite of their government sometimes because we demonize these people and we're like, so ready to judge what is in fact a very common experience. I mean, you're talking to 30, 40% of the population is going to have some type of poverty spell probably a year long. We could actually design a better public safety net and better social welfare system with the understanding that it is a result of income volatility. So that's. I think that permanent underclass is like the most important myth to sh. The most wrong part of your conceptions of poverty. I will say there is a statistic that people will throw back at me when I say this, which is that if you look at people in poverty, most of them have been poor for a long time. Their average spell is much, much longer. So this is called the hospital metaphor.

[Robin]

Okay.

[Kathryn]

This is actually a very good way to understand poverty duration. Most of the time, people don't stay in the hospital that long. But people who are in the hospital, a lot of them have been there a long time. Poverty is like that. Most people aren't poor for that long. But if you were to kind of look at poor people, a lot of them have been there a long time. And those two things are not in contradiction to each other.

[Robin]

Yeah, that is a challenging thing to hold in your head.

[Kathryn]

It is. And I think that that's a nuance that's hard for people to understand. And if you don't like people in poverty or don't want to help them, you can latch onto a statistic that looks much worse based on who you're looking at.

[Robin]

Right.

[Kathryn]

We have 37 million people in poverty in the US last year, about 11% of the total population. That number has not changed much over the past 40 years. It tends to bounce between 11 and 15% based on how the economy is doing. Always goes up in recessions, tends to fall afterwards. This kind of goes right into the second myth, which is that the reason why people are poor is because they don't work.

[Robin]

Right.

[Kathryn]

And I think there's a couple ways to dispel that. The first is that you need to know that the poorest people in the US Are children and the least poor people in the US Are the elderly. And your idea of like, poor people don't work. You're kind of assigning poverty in the US to what you think working age adults should do, ignoring the two other sides of the population. One which we have decided to subsidize and keep out of poverty and do a very good job at on the elderly side and one that we don't do that.

[Robin]

Not as great a job. Yeah.

[Kathryn]

We don't do that because their parents need to get a job. And so kids are the most poor and it trends with age.

[Robin]

Yeah. I think when we think about poverty, like criticizing groups in poverty, we don't think that children get counted.

[Kathryn]

Children do get counted. They are very poor. So the second myth that people who are poor don't work, it gets at this idea that like, well, we, we have increasing income volatility in the US Income volatility just means that your income isn't predictable month to month, which happens if you have irregular hours, irregular income, or you transition between employment. And people at the bottom are more likely to have all three. Scenari.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Kathryn]

They're both in high turnover industries that don't have set hours and their income is not fixed or predictable.

[Robin]

Right.

[Kathryn]

So just to give you some idea of what I'm talking about, there are 157 million 18 to 64 year olds in the US and 20 million of them are poor.

[Robin]

Okay.

[Kathryn]

Keep in mind that it's like 37 million people who are poor overall. So just to give you a sense of the number of children in poverty.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Kathryn]

So we have 20 million people in the US who are 18 to 64 years old and poor and 7 million of them are working. And in fact, 2 million of them work full time, full year and 5 million of them work but less than full time full year. So 35% of the adult poor population has a job. The 13 million who aren't working and there are adults, this population is going to have an incredibly high disability rate. Some of them are going to qualify for disability and some of them are not. So disability in the US has more than one definition, both lived and operationalized. So the Supplemental Security Income is a cash program for very poor disabled people. It has a disability test, Social Security Disability Insurance, a cash program for workers who have become disabled. You have to have a sufficient work history to get it. It also has a definition of disability. Even the VA and the Department of Defense have their own definitions of disability. So it's across these definitions, there are still people who will report, I have a work limiting condition, but I didn't pass the disability test. So a lot of people who are 18 to 64 years old and poor and not working, you're going to have a ton that are on disability, but they don't get enough in benefits to be above the poverty line. And then you'll have a ton who arguably should be on disability, but they don't meet the test. And disability tests don't change that often. One of the conditions that's very hard to get a disability benefit for right now are related to, like, psychological disorders.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Kathryn]

And some of the disability test comes down to, could you reasonably get a job doing something else in the economy? Well, they don't update those. What are the other opportunities in the economy? They don't update those regularly.

[Robin]

Like, what do you.

[Kathryn]

What do you mean? I mean, like, in order to be disabled, you both have to have some type of condition, and it has to be the case that you can't go out and earn money in the labor market. Well, part of that is they actually have tables of occupations and job potential jobs that someone with a condition can do. And so they're like, well, I mean, your hands shake or you can't move your left arm, but you should still be able to do this. And so some of the disability test isn't even, you are not disabled, but comes down to like, we still can't.

[Robin]

You're disabled, but you could still get a job.

[Kathryn]

And for the record, they don't get a job. And economists have studied people who were rejected from disability and have found they really, they don't go to work. Like, these are people who can't work, but they don't get disability. There's a lot of them, and they.

[Robin]

Just, they're just now going to be.

[Kathryn]

Poor and probably now lose their Medicaid because they won't meet the work requirement. I mean, the other thing to keep in mind is that it's not easy even if you are a disabled person who can hold down a job. The Americans with Disabilities act is not ironclad, and it can be very difficult even with a condition that allows you to work, to hold down a job. We talked about this before. The highest employment rates people with a disability have ever had were coming out of the pandemic when work from home was a much more accessible option. And then as work from home opportunities end and remote work ends, so do the employment opportunities for people with a disability. So it's. I don't want to, like, you know, I don't want to sleep on. The Americans with Disabilities act as an incredible piece of legislation, and it's in some ways the envy of other countries, but that doesn't mean we've done it all.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Kathryn]

So in addition to volatile income and people working bad jobs and low wages at a $7.25 an hour minimum wage, you also have people who are being Missed by the social welfare system. But I don't want to make it sound like there's nobody out there who's like, probably doesn't have a disability, but also doesn't have a job.

[Robin]

They also exist, sure, but they're not everybody.

[Kathryn]

If you close your eyes and think of an adult in poverty, you probably shouldn't think of them. So that's myth two.

[Robin]

Okay.

[Kathryn]

Rolling through them. And that leads us right into myth three, which is that these 20 million working age adults are all living off of government checks. 20 million people, 18 to 64. Those are the working age adults. Are they living off the fat of the land? A half million of those are on tanf, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, which is welfare. They can only be on TANF if they're in some kind of work program. So like they're in a temporary job or they're in a training program. It's under a half million adult women who get it. And the max is five years. And now 4 million will be on either SSI or SSDI, which is the disability program. Which is the disability programs. So of this 20 million.

[Robin]

Oh, so how many are getting government assistance? It's. What was that? Four and a half million total.

[Kathryn]

Yeah. So not even one in four are getting cash from the government of any kind. I mean, they could be getting unemployment.

[Robin]

Maybe they're getting unemployment.

[Kathryn]

Yeah. Yeah. But, but unemployment has a time limited at max, goes for 26 weeks. And they could be getting general assistance, which is a state administered program. But GA also, which is really low. Which is really low, goes to very few people and also doesn't last that long.

[Robin]

Yeah. And it's really hard to get at least in lease here.

[Kathryn]

And it's really hard to get, you know, for the most part, if you've got 20 million poor adults in the United States, they're not getting cash from the government for sure. Now the pushback I get on that is, well, if you're in a free house with free food, do you need, do you need cash? Yeah. Well, you do. But Also there are 4 million people in the US who get housing assistance and 1 million who get childcare assistance.

[Robin]

Because they're in poverty.

[Kathryn]

Yes. And both of those, those programs are not entitlements. So you could be income and situation eligible for housing from the government and the vast majority of people won't get it.

[Robin]

Oh, yeah.

[Kathryn]

Because it's a rationed program.

[Robin]

Yeah. It's very hard to get a housing voucher. Yes.

[Kathryn]

And people who are on a disability benefit come first again. That's not 20 million people who get housing. It's not 20 million people who get free childcare, just like it's not 20 million people who get welfare. And it's not 20 million people who are on disability. Right. Like most of these programs do not even cover a fourth of the population that is poor and working age adults. Now, the last one is that Medicaid and food stamps, probably the majority of this population does get. But of course, you know, we just passed the single largest cut to Medicaid in the program's history. It's about a trillion dollars that's being shaved off the program. And you know, the estimates are that somewhere between. Well, this is confusing, right, because there's people who are targeted to be kicked off of Medicaid by the work requirements. Then there are people who would be failing to enroll Medicaid because now there are work requirements to the application process. And then the bill separately had cuts to the Affordable Care act, marketplace exchange tax subsidy. And so in total, about somewhere between 10 and 15 million people will probably become uninsured. But the work requirement is going to hit at least 5 million, according to the Congressional Budget Office. But if it goes into effect the way that it went into effect in Arkansas, it'll probably be closer to 7 million who are kicked off of Medicaid. So even if you assume all 20 of those million people were on Medicaid, at least seven of them are gonna lose it.

[Robin]

So. And a lot of these folks are, per your other study, they're disabled but weren't able to qualify for disability.

[Kathryn]

That's a lot of them. Yeah, not all of them. Yeah, but that's a lot of them. So there is a set of people in the US that would meet the stereotype that is often projected onto poor people, that they are people who have been poor for a very long time, who have never work them. Getting government assistance is probably the hardest part to believe. I mean, I could believe the first two and say like, yeah, even in like, by a generous estimation, there might be 3 million of those people or 5 million of those people, they're not getting much. Like, if they're getting anything, they're getting food stamps, which on average goes like three grand a year.

[Robin]

So less than $10 a day or something to try to.

[Kathryn]

Yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty low. They've definitely done studies of consumption over the course of food stamps. Food stamps replenishes once a month and within one to four days of your food stamps replenishing is when most People will have deep food insecurity and skipped meals and hunger, and then they get the food stamps and then they bounce back.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Kathryn]

So I, I wanted to set these three things out to be optimistic.

[Robin]

One of the things that I take away from this conversation is that we could diagnose the problems around poverty a lot better, better than we do and be more agile about how we meet needs. The combination of state and federal programs, the bureaucracy to it, the time requirement that we're asking for, the lack of updates to the kind of things you were talking about. There's a lot of opportunity for us to help people in need when they need it and shorten then the period of time that they're going to need it.

[Kathryn]

Yeah. And I, you know, this is all about working age adults.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Kathryn]

You know what you would get by looking at this group is that our economy is generating poverty and we don't do much to prevent it or address it. We're much more inclined to say like, this is your fault for not having a job and being lazy and growing up where you were told poverty's okay versus, like, yeah, we have a really volatile low wage labor market that produces a ton of poverty and income shocks. And we've done. And very little about it. I mean, the whole other separate conversation is like, why don't we care that there are kids who are poor?

[Robin]

Yeah, yeah.

[Kathryn]

It's somewhere between 10 and 12 million kids. It's like one in seven. It's a really high number. And we know just how deleterious poverty is for a child. Why we don't intervene there, I think goes back to this question of like, well, we don't want to help parents that we think aren't deserving are late. Yeah, we don't want to help. I mean, like, y', all, poverty's not that hard to fix. Like, this is the optimistic part. There are two ways to fix poverty. One of them is the band aid.

[Robin]

Give money, give them cash.

[Kathryn]

And if you don't believe me, that that could work. Look at the poverty rate of elderly people. Give them cash, man. They're not poor. They might not be thriving. You could have a lot of elderly people tell you that they're not getting by on much, but they're not poor, they're not on the street, they're not destitute, and they all have healthcare. So we can do a lot when we put our mind to it, but we've decided that old people who have worked are worthy and young children are not.

[Robin]

Even though there are future worker bots I mean, like, they're future worker bots.

[Kathryn]

I will say I would be remiss if I didn't bring up that. Christ, I don't want to get into this, but the way that this is like, this is a groan. This is such a groan. The way that we measure poverty in the US Is based on cash income. However, much of the support that the federal government provides to people who are in poverty is not cash. So, like, food stamps wouldn't count as cash. And so you could get food stamps and still be poor because you don't have any other income. But, like, there's this whole other way to measure poverty which we call the supplemental poverty measure, which takes these things into account. However, it also takes into account things like the taxes you pay, your medical expenses, how much you have to pay to get to your job, and that poverty line is a little bit higher. Under the supplemental measure, the poverty rate for children is lower.

[Robin]

Okay, all right, that makes sense.

[Kathryn]

But under the supplemental measure, the poverty rate for the elderly is higher, basically because kids are supported through in kind benefits and elderly people pay a ton of money for health care. But, I mean, we're not winning awards. It's not like a zero. It's not like actually poverty goes away. If you look at this measure, like, come on. No, it's not.

[Robin]

It's smaller.

[Kathryn]

I mean, what's really unfortunate about it is that when we said three and a half million kids were removed from poverty during the child tax credit, this measure is the one that's like, it actually did fall. Like it cratered, this poverty rate for children amongst the supplemental measure because of all the things that went out the door in the pandemic, and then it shot back up again. So that is depressing. I'm not gonna lie. People who had spent their entire lives researching poverty and trying to come up with the most palatable non blue sky, but actually practical approaches to helping with poverty, they arrived at a pretty good policy. And it worked. And it worked really well. Now it ended, but that doesn't mean we don't know that it worked. We gave them surveys asking them where they spent their money. We gave them like diaries to say, tell me everything you spent this money on. We tracked their income and measurements over the month. We followed this money so closely, we, as in people who care about poverty, to come up with a mountain of evidence that basically said, turns out if you give parents, if you give parents of young children, especially the parents of children, money goes right out the door for food and shelter, which is what most people spend their money on. And then if they spend it on their kids, they spend it on things like educational expenses. So it's not inspiring to walk away from a solution, but it is incredibly optimistic to know that one is within our reach. We don't have to call it the child tax credit. It's basically, you give every kid in the US A little bit of cash every month to stabilize their incomes in the face of poverty and volatility and food stamps that aren't enough. And the biggest retort, I mean, the number one objection to this policy is that it's too expensive, and it is a fourth of the size of the tax cut we just passed. So we could do this. We could have.

[Robin]

Yeah, we could do this all day long, y'. All.

[Kathryn]

I could do this four times. I could give every kid in the US Tens of thousands of dollars, and it would still cost less than this tax bill. So I take a lot of hope in that of both. It's incredibly possible. We know we can do a good job and we can make a difference for child poverty. I take a lot of hope from it.

[Robin]

Yeah, I don't want to dash your hope, but, you know, you did talk about this group of people that we've made no Progress on in 40 years. Are we trying anything? Do we have any ideas?

[Kathryn]

So the other thing that keeps people in this group is that they're caretaking, and they're not necessarily caretaking for children. They could be caretaking for parents. Parents or a sibling. And so, like, you can't work because you have to take care of someone, but, like, you aren't earning money, and so you don't. You don't have enough. It always goes back to the right diagnosis for the problem so that you can find the right solution. And we haven't tried much when it comes to this group. We haven't tried to do, say, like, updates to our disability codes or our disability test, or let's make sure that behavioral and psychological disorders are covered by the disability test. And in the meantime, while we're doing that with the left hand, and let's pursue a really aggressive accommodation policy at work, and let's make sure something like the right to work from home is enshrined in law to give people who don't have the ability to get to an office a fair chance. We could do more for disabled people. At the same time, we could do more for caretaking because paid family leave. We think about little babies, but it's mainly adults who are being taken care of under a paid family leave scheme.

[Robin]

Really?

[Kathryn]

Yeah. Okay. If I have paid family medical leave like they have in California, like they have in Oregon, half the claims will be for myself. Like I'm on paid family medical leave because I am on medical leave. And then of the remaining claims, the biggest claim is for parent, partner or sibling. When you think of like dependents that fall ill, the people are much more likely to list off people who are older than them than younger than them, especially where we are in our demographics right now. So yeah, we don't have a great long term care system. We don't have a short term care system. So we don't have a great long term care system. I think that if we approach those problems more head on, we would make more headway with the population. And then I think it goes back to are you trying to fix the person or are you trying to fix the thing that's causing people to not be able to earn income, which would be a terrible labor market or disability that's not correctly diagnosed or treated or cared for, or a lack of care system in our economy like those we'll never get to zero. But we could do better, right?

[Robin]

Well, and I also think we could do better about people's income volatility. I mean, these people that you're talking about, huge numbers of them going in and out of poverty over the course of one year or four years, we could do so much to even that out for them. And if we had less of that, frankly, we'd have more bandwidth as a society to deal with these other maybe more seemingly intractable problems, but that are affecting a smaller portion of the population.

[Kathryn]

Yeah. Do you see people as the cause of poverty or the result of poverty?

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Kathryn]

I mean, if you think of it as a result, you'll get to the cause. If you think the cause is the person, you're not going to be that effective. Because we know that that's not the case. We know that because we have hero statisticians at the Census bureau who are telling us as clearly as that is not the case.

[Robin]

That's a good way to put it.

[Kathryn]

Okay, well, if you just said that I should just stop talking and, and.

[Robin]

I'm just gonna look at you blankly. Time to stop talking. I'm gonna.

[Kathryn]

Time to stop talking.

[Robin]

Okay.

[Kathryn]

Okay. So. Okay, done. That's poverty. I just wanna keep going. And we would love questions on this, I guess is one way to put it. I would love to know what y' all would like to know more about this.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Kathryn]

Palate, cleanser, palate cleanser.

[Robin]

Time for executive orders.

[Kathryn]

Wait, can you go first?

[Robin]

Okay. Mine's really petty. Mine is take your trash cans and your recycling in within 24 hours of the actual trash trucks coming. I've had it. People on my street, bring in your trash.

[Kathryn]

Do any of them listen to the podcast?

[Robin]

No. No. That's so true. My tenant downstairs listens to the podcast. He'll agree with me. Bring in your trash cans. He brings in the trash cans. He's great.

[Kathryn]

I don't know if mine's gonna be petty. Okay. It's also related to trash, actually, but it's everywhere in the US Recycling and trash has to come once a week. Like make it some kind of public health order.

[Robin]

You don't get your recycling every week.

[Kathryn]

Not in the low tax haven. We have a separate problem here, which is that our recycling only comes every other week. And it's also like the city is behind, so they don't come on time.

[Robin]

Yeah, they usually have ye.

[Kathryn]

So you just leave it out. It's a way. I was driving my kids and doing drop off in the morning, and as we were waiting to like take a right turn, a recycling truck went by and my husband and I were like, oh, get out some flags. Tell him to come down this block. And there's something I don't. I can't speak to what is going on in the city of Houston. It's like been an ongoing problem. But yes, they are always late with recycling. So you would hate it because there's just. We will have like four days in a row where. Where you're like, bins out on the.

[Robin]

Street all the time. Oh, yeah.

[Kathryn]

No, not in Robin's world. So I do. I think that you should have. For environmental purposes, I think you should have guaranteed weekly pickup everywhere in the.

[Robin]

U.S. yeah, I like it. I recommend it. Except take your bins in. Take them in. Okay.

[Kathryn]

If our executive orders were made into an hoa, we would be vicious on the neighborhood.

[Robin]

It would be terrible.

[Kathryn]

Just Robin and I walking around with like a whistle and a megaphone, finding someone with a leaf blower, being like, no, no. Spiritual sponsors.

[Robin]

Yes. So the TV show Dairy Girls. I don't know if you've seen Dairy Girls.

[Kathryn]

I memorized it. I love it so much.

[Robin]

So people had recommended this to me for a long time, and I just never. And I never watched it until we started watching it a few weeks ago. And I. It is really good. I particularly love sister George Michael who steals every scene. She's the woman who runs the Catholic Girls School in Derry where all the main characters go to school. If you haven't seen it, it's all set at the very end of the period called the Troubles in Northern Ireland. And the conflict of the mundane of your daily life and the surreal of living through the tail end of a civil war in that case. And how the ordinary just kind of keeps going through this extraordinary period of history. But it's also just really funny. It's really funny. So, yeah. So Dairy Girls, if you hadn't seen it, recommend.

[Kathryn]

I basically keep like 10 episodes permanently downloaded on my phone. Should I just find myself in a situation where I would like to. I don't know. I'm like, I'm pulling up the concert episode. Oh, man. Okay. This is a great spiritual sponsor. My spiritual sponsor this week is. I don't know her handle, but she's a creator and her name is Coach Jackie. Okay, so this is a creator who runs a feature called Is she Gay or does she Ex? And it's like coach college basketball or Play professional soccer. Now this is. Okay, so stay with me here. It doesn't sound good. It's really funny that she takes photos of women who are in some type of professional athletic settings and then goes through each item of the wardrobe that they're wearing to say whether or not it's straight or gay. And at the end you have to guess and she does the reveal of whether or not they're straight or gay. It's so funny. I don't know why I find it so delightful.

[Robin]

But like her, because she's really charming, you know?

[Kathryn]

Oh, she's super charming. The lines are great. She'll have throwaway lines that are like. The timing is incredible. Of like. Well, I know I said that messy buns are straight, but this one's messy enough. It's gone all the way back to gay. Like, it's so good. The whole thing is really uplifting and heartwarming and it's pretty charming. It's great.

[Robin]

It's great.

[Kathryn]

But I was trying to probe my thoughts of, like, why do I like this so much of these, like, two minute videos assessing the wardrobe of professional athletes about gay or straight as. I'm giggling like hell and I think it's because one, she's like, clearly so full of admiration. But I also think it goes back to something I really just love about professional women's sports is that it is a remarkably gay, straight place. And there aren't that many places in the US that I can think of where there's like Sexual orientation parody or you have like a really strong. You put up strong numbers on both. I mean, other than our show, which is also sexual orientation. Perfect. Perfect parody among sexual orientation. I think I just like the idea of how much women's sports is a place where there are gay and straight people.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Kathryn]

You know, together. And what that says about women's sports. And so the fact that it would be like, so such an obvious and accepted thing that you could circle back around to these types of videos. I think that might be why I find it so funny. In addition to her incredible comedic timing.

[Robin]

Yeah. But also her assessment of what's gay and what's straight is particularly funny. Is it always accurate? I don't know if it matters, but you know, it's where you hold your hands, what earrings you're wearing, what's the collar on your shirt like, frankly, V neck. Very gay.

[Kathryn]

You know, like the top is gay. The pants are straight. The heels are obviously gay. The heels are obviously straight. But the way she's holding her hand, that's the gayest thing I've ever seen.

[Robin]

But. But the ponytail, you know, it's. Yeah. Okay, just take our. Just take our word for it. It's funny.

[Kathryn]

No, take our word for it that Robyn and I DM is half these videos.

[Robin]

Seriously. Seriously.

[Kathryn]

So thank you very much to the people that have kept us laughing. Sister George Michael Dairy Girls and Coach Jackie in the ever present question of is she gay or is she straight?

[Robin]

We actually also had a financial sponsor who came in at kind of the spiritual sponsor plus level, who's anonymous but wanted to shout out his mother in law, Cindy Durchie in Driggs, Idaho, who is a forensic accounting professor and who also apparently listens to our show, which is amazing. And we just want to say thanks a lot. It really is wind under our wings.

[Kathryn]

Thank you very much. Okay, we end our show by snapping out our producers, Andy and Sophie.

[Robin]

We're going to be so pleased that it's not even two hours of recording.

[Kathryn]

That was only one bathroom break. Amazing new record.