OT -- Poverty in America, No Judgments, Just the Numbers

I have been deeply concerned about poverty in America and poverty in the world.  I pulled a demographic report from the Census Bureau, American FactFinder.  The report I pulled was SELECTED CHARACTERISTICS OF PEOPLE AT SPECIFIED LEVELS OF POVERTY IN THE PAST 12 MONTHS, 2012-2016 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates.  I then removed the margin of error estimates, probably to the deep chagrin of every statistician out there, and replaced it with a number by multiplying the population estimate by the percentage estimate for people living at less than 50% of the poverty guides.  I got this:

S1703: SELECTED CHARACTERISTICS OF PEOPLE AT SPECIFIED LEVELS OF POVERTY IN THE PAST 12 MONTHS
	Total	Less than 50 percent of the poverty level
	Estimate	Estimate	Number
Population for whom poverty status is determined	310,629,645	6.70%	20,812,186
SEX
Male	152,049,756	6.10%	9,275,035
Female	158,579,889	7.30%	11,576,332
AGE
Under 18 years	72,456,096	9.40%	6,810,873
Related children of householder under 18 years	72,125,767	9.10%	6,563,445
18 to 64 years	193,298,963	6.60%	12,757,732
65 years and over	44,874,586	2.70%	1,211,614
RACE AND HISPANIC OR LATINO ORIGIN
One race	301,186,289	6.60%	19,878,295
White	228,440,346	5.40%	12,335,779
Black or African American	38,562,630	12.40%	4,781,766
American Indian and Alaska Native	2,511,333	13.20%	331,496
Asian	16,289,421	5.90%	961,076
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander	542,970	9.00%	48,867
Some other race	14,839,589	9.80%	1,454,280
Two or more races	9,443,356	8.70%	821,572
Hispanic or Latino origin (of any race)	54,085,091	9.20%	4,975,828
White alone, not Hispanic or Latino	192,842,538	4.80%	9,256,442
LIVING ARRANGEMENT
In family households	258,271,058	5.50%	14,204,908
In married-couple family	185,884,694	2.20%	4,089,463
In Female householder, no husband present households	52,789,626	15.70%	8,287,971
In other living arrangements	52,358,587	12.40%	6,492,465
EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT
Population 25 years and over	210,091,977	4.90%	10,294,507
Less than high school graduate	26,769,707	10.00%	2,676,971
High school graduate (includes equivalency)	57,410,562	5.90%	3,387,223
Some college or associate's degree	61,447,432	4.50%	2,765,134
Bachelor's degree or higher	64,464,276	2.30%	1,482,678
NATIVITY AND CITIZENSHIP STATUS
Native	269,012,519	6.60%	17,754,826
Foreign born	41,617,126	7.20%	2,996,433
Naturalized citizen	19,796,939	3.80%	752,284
DISABILITY STATUS
With any disability	39,091,779	8.10%	3,166,434
No disability	270,843,535	6.50%	17,604,830
WORK STATUS
Population 16 to 64 years	201,574,667	6.70%	13,505,503
Worked full-time, year-round	99,828,565	0.50%	499,143
Worked less than full-time, year-round	53,298,161	8.70%	4,636,940
Did not work	48,447,941	17.20%	8,333,046

It is both the percentages of each demographic and the aggregate numbers in each demographic that I find interesting.  Women are slightly more likely to live at <50% of the poverty guides and make up a larger number -- there are more women than men in the United States.  Whites are the least likely to to live at <50% of the poverty at 5.4% of the population but that drops to 4.8% for "white alone, not Hispanic or Latino."  Because of the larger number of whites, they make up almost 60% of the number of poor at this level and still over 42% considering the white not Hispanic category.

The data confirm some obvious notions:  young people are more likely to be poor; people with less education are more likely to be poor.

A proposition that may not be obvious:  naturalized citizens are significantly less likely to be poor as compared to native born citizens.  Both groups are less likely to be poor than the whole category of foreign born.  Extracting the naturalized from the foreign born to get a foreign born, not naturalized category and we get 10.2% living at <50% of the poverty guide.

And in case you were wondering, the poverty guides published by HHS:

2018 POVERTY GUIDELINES FOR THE 48 CONTIGUOUS STATES AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
PERSONS IN FAMILY/HOUSEHOLD	POVERTY GUIDELINE
For families/households with more than 8 persons, add $4,320 for each additional person.
1	$12,140
2	$16,460
3	$20,780
4	$25,100
5	$29,420
6	$33,740
7	$38,060
8	$42,380

The federal SSI rates paid to aged and disabled would keep people above the <50% poverty level but not above the poverty level. 

I represent claimants for Social Security disability (both DIB and SSI) that subsist on largess of other or just food stamps.  Many "couch surf;" others are just plain homeless.  I am reminded that minimum wage in Mexico is about $4.70 per day.  World guidelines define "extreme poverty" as living on less than $1.90 per day with under 10% of the world population at that level since 2013 (that's 600 million people).  HHS defines poverty for a family of four at under $69 per day or about $17 per day per person.  The number of poor in the U.S. described above -- $8.50 per day per person in a family of four.  SNAP or food stamps pay benefits in addition to poverty level wages:

TABLE 1
SNAP Benefits by Household Size
Household Size	Maximum Monthly Benefit, Fiscal Year 2018	Estimated Average Monthly Benefit, Fiscal Year 20181
1	$192	$134
2	$352	$252
3	$504	$376
4	$640	$456
5	$760	$521
6	$913	$618
7	$1,009	$672
8	$1,153	$852
Each additional person	$144

These are data worth considering in policy and kitchen table debates over poverty in the United States and poverty in the world.  I leave it up to you to draw your own conclusions about the subject of poverty.