Newsweek: Poverty rates have dropped

Saw this Newsweek article on "Why Welfare Reform Worked". What I found interesting was the information on poverty rates.

The poverty rate among blacks has fallen sharply, though it's still discouragingly high. From 1968 to 1994 it barely budged, averaging 32.4 percent. By 2000 it was 22.5 percent. (The poverty rate is the share of people living below the government's poverty line, about $19,500 for a family of four in 2004.) Similarly, there have been big drops in child poverty. Since 1989 the number of children in poverty has fallen 12 percent for non-Hispanic whites and 14 percent for blacks [... E]ven after the 2001 recession, many poverty rates stayed well below previous levels. For all blacks, it was 24.7 percent in 2004. [...also since 1991] the teen birthrate has dropped by a third. The mothers least capable of supporting children have had fewer of them.

The article also notes that poverty hasn't been eliminated, and in fact there is one major ethnic or racial group that has more children in poverty now than 15 years ago. Which? Latinos. The author considers this a side affect of the large number of Latino illegal immigrants.

Now, what I found interesting here was the author's focus on black poverty rates. What, only blacks are on welfare? Looking at census info (I <3 google) I found the following:

Number of people below the poverty level (in thousands) % of total % change White, not Hispanic 1991 17,741 9.4% -8.5% 2004 16,870 8.6% Black 1991 10,242 32.7% -24.5% 2004 9,000 24.7% Asian 1991 996 13.8% -29.0% 2004 1,303 9.8% Hispanic (of any race) 1991 6,339 28.7% -23.7% 2004 9,132 21.9% All Races 1991 35,708 14.2% -10.6% 2004 36,997 12.7%

Being the anal person I am, I added up the numbers of folk in poverty and got slightly smaller numbers than in the "All Races" table. I expected this - with numbers "in thousands", rounding tends to happen, and the notation "(of any race)" implies there may be some double-counting.

I noticed that, according to these numbers, the poverty rates have gone down for each group. Better, the absolute number of blacks & whites below the poverty line have gone down - despite an overall increase population-wise! But it was when I caculated the change rate that it got interesting. Each racial group has had the percent of people living below the poverty line decrease by over 20% - except whites. Why not mention that? Fear of looking racist? The percent of asians below the poverty line has gone down by 29%, the largest change of the 4 groups. Granted, asians are the smallest of the four groups, but still: Why does the article not mention asians at all?

California is cold & damp?

must be referring to San Francisco...

She gets too hungry for dinner at eight
She likes the theater, and never comes late
She'd never bother with people she'd hate
That's why the lady is a tramp

Doesn't like crap games with barons or earls
Won't go to Harlem in ermine and pearls
Won't dish the dirt, with the rest of the girls
That's why the lady is a tramp

She likes the free, free fresh wind in her hair
Life without care
She's broke, but it's o'k
She hates California, it's cold and it's damp
That's why the lady is a tramp
- From the Rodgers & Hart musical Pal Joey

I first saw a production of this at the Seattle Rep 79 or 80. I get the humor of the song much better than I did then ;)