Kerby Anderson

Michael Green created quite a stir when he proclaimed that the true poverty line in America is at least six figures. While I appreciate his attempt to remind us that it takes much more money to have a middle-class lifestyle, I knew that his economic assumptions were off. But he deserves credit for reminding us that our devalued dollars don’t go as far as they did six decades ago.

Tyler Cowen challenges “The Myth of the $140,000 Poverty Line” by looking at some of Green’s assumptions. For example, the original research paper that led to the official poverty line was calculated as “three times the cost of a minimum food diet in 1963, adjusted for inflation.” But the poverty line today tracks the cost of expenses and already has picked up the additional factors included in Green’s analysis.

Tyler Cowen also reminds us that “poverty in America has been falling for many decades. In 2023, researchers from the University of Notre Dame, the University of Chicago, and Baylor University measured poverty using consumption—what people are actually able to buy—rather than income, which can fluctuate due to a variety of factors unrelated to well-being. They found that since 1980, poverty has fallen by more than 27 percentage points.”

Here is a simple comparison. “In 2023 dollars, the average household spent about $10,000 on food in 1960 and about $10,000 on food in 2023.”  At the same time, the average family income rose by over $85,000 and median family income by nearly $55,000.”

Michael Green is correct that it takes much more to live above the poverty line. It just isn’t $140,000.