Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
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A. THE LAW
1. TITLE XX LEGISLATIVE HISTORY MEANS THAT SOCIAL SERVICES MUST REDUCE WELFARE
DEPENDENCY
STEWART 78
SUPREME COURT JUSTICE, WRITING FOR A UNANIMOUS SUPREME COURT
MAJORITY
QUERN, DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC AID OF ILLINOIS, ET AL. v.
MANDLEY ET AL.
No. 76-1159
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
436 U.S. 725; 98 S. Ct. 2068; 56 L. Ed. 2d 658; 1978 U.S. LEXIS 101
And the declared purpose of the new Title XX social services program enacted in
1975, 42 U. S. C. § 1397 et seq. (1970 ed., Supp. V), was to "[encourage] each State,
as far as practicable under the conditions in that State, to furnish services directed at
the goal of . . . achieving or maintaining economic self-support to prevent, reduce,
or eliminate dependency. . . ."
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Section 2006 of Title XX of the Social Security Act directs the Secretary to
establish uniform definitions of services for use by the states in preparing the
information to be submitted in the annual Social Services Block Grant report. These
services are defined in title 45, part 96, appendix A of the code of federal
regulations and are reflected in the state of Michigan's Title XX Social Services Block
Grant Report.
2. ONLY OUR INTERP SOLVES LIMITS - THE COMMON USE OF SOCIAL SERVICES CAN COVER
ANYTHING
PARHAM 82
Practice Issues in Social Welfare Administration, Policy and Planning, ED LEBOVITZ
editor, google books
Mr. Parham retired in 1994 as professsor of social welfare at the University of Georgia.
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"Social services" means services purchased using Federal Social Services Block
Grant Act funds and state and local funds
In the past, limited information has been available on the use of title XX funds by the States. Under the
Title XX Social Services Block Grant Program, each State must submit a report to the Secretary of the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) on the intended use of its funds. These
preexpenditure reports are only required to include information about the types of activities to be funded
and the characteristics of the individuals to be served.
The Family Support Act of 1988 (Public Law 100-485) strengthened reporting requirements. That
legislation required States to submit annual reports containing detailed information on the
services actually funded and the individuals served through title XX funds. DHHS published a final
rule on November 15, 1993 implementing the reporting requirements and providing uniform
definitions of services.
B. VIOLATION – THE AFF PROGRAM ISN’T FUNDED BY TITLE XX AND IT DOESN’T ADDRESS
ONE OF THE FIVE GOALS. THIS IS A SPECIFIC STATUTORY LIMIT
STATE OF MICHIGAN FAMILY INDEPENDNECE AGENCY 00
http://www.michigan.gov/documents/FIA-RptBlockGrant01_13607_7.pdf.
STATE OF MICHIGAN, FAMILY INDEPENDENCE AGENCY Administration for Budget,
Analysis and Financial Management August, 2000
Social Services are directed at five goals in the Social Services Block Grant
statute to: Prevent, reduce or eliminate dependency; achieve or maintain self-
sufficiency; prevent neglect, abuse or exploitation of children and adults; prevent
or reduce inappropriate care; and secure admission or referral for institutional
care when other forms of care are not appropriate. Within the specific
limitations of the law, each state has the flexibility to determine what services
will be provided, who is eligible to receive services, and how funds are distributed
among the various services within the state.
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Section 2006 of Title XX of the Social Security Act directs the Secretary to
establish uniform definitions of services for use by the states in preparing the
information to be submitted in the annual Social Services Block Grant report. These
services are defined in title 45, part 96, appendix A of the code of federal
regulations and are reflected in the state of Michigan's Title XX Social Services Block
Grant Report.
2. ONLY OUR INTERP SOLVES LIMITS - THE COMMON USE OF SOCIAL SERVICES CAN COVER
ANYTHING
PARHAM 82
Practice Issues in Social Welfare Administration, Policy and Planning, ED LEBOVITZ
editor, google books
Mr. Parham retired in 1994 as professsor of social welfare at the University of Georgia.
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VIOLATION: TITLE XX: NO INCOME SUPPLEMENTS
A. THE LAW – SOCIAL SERVICE BLOCK GRANTS EXPLICITLY PROHIBT INCOME SUPPLEMENTS
UNDER TITLE XX
GISH 2
http://digital.library.unt.edu/govdocs/crs/permalink/meta-crs-3415:1
Domestic Social Policy Division, Congressional Research Service
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Section 2006 of Title XX of the Social Security Act directs the Secretary to
establish uniform definitions of services for use by the states in preparing the
information to be submitted in the annual Social Services Block Grant report. These
services are defined in title 45, part 96, appendix A of the code of federal
regulations and are reflected in the state of Michigan's Title XX Social Services Block
Grant Report.
2. ONLY OUR INTERP SOLVES LIMITS - THE COMMON USE OF SOCIAL SERVICES CAN COVER
ANYTHING
PARHAM 82
Practice Issues in Social Welfare Administration, Policy and Planning, ED LEBOVITZ
editor, google books
Mr. Parham retired in 1994 as professsor of social welfare at the University of Georgia.
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SOCIAL SERVICE AND INCOME SUPPORT ARE DISTINCT AND IN DIRECT COMPETITION
ALLARD 7
Assistant Professor of Political Science and Public Policy, Taubman Center for Public
Policy, Brown University
http://wcpc.washington.edu/news/seminars/docs/gettingThere2007-12-03.pdf
“Getting There or Losing Out: Place, Race, and Access to the Safety Net”
Congressional Research Services (CRS) has tracked federal, state, and local
expenditures in a small number of social service program areas (job training, child care
programs, and the SSBG) over the past thirty years to provide a conservative estimate
of trends in social service spending and to compare those expenditures to more salient
cash assistance programs.
These CRS data are the best available data on annual social service spending, but are
substantial underestimates of the public social service sector financed through
thousands of programs and administered across thousands of governmental agencies.
Nevertheless, these data provide useful insights into the character of the contemporary
safety net.
According to CRS data, federal, state, and local government spent $18.5 billion (in
$2006) on social services in 1975, roughly half that spent on welfare cash
assistance ($31.5 billion in $2006). Public expenditures for this narrow definition of
social services almost doubled in real dollars between 1975 and 2002, reaching
approximately $34 billion (in $2006). In contrast, federal and state welfare cash
assistance expenditures have declined by two-thirds during the same period, hovering
near $11 or $12 billion (in $2006) for the last several years.
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LEGAL CASES DISTINGUISH BETWEEN SOCIAL SERVICES UNDER TITLE XX AND CASH
ASSISTANCE
STEWART 78
SUPREME COURT JUSTICE, WRITING FOR A UNANIMOUS SUPREME COURT
MAJORITY
QUERN, DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC AID OF ILLINOIS, ET AL. v.
MANDLEY ET AL.
No. 76-1159
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
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436 U.S. 725; 98 S. Ct. 2068; 56 L. Ed. 2d 658; 1978 U.S. LEXIS 101
The § 402 "state plan for aid and services to needy families with children" is the central, organizing
element of the Title IV-A program. A State's plan establishes both its funding relationship with the Federal
Government and the substantive terms of all Title IV-A programs in which it has elected to participate.
Thus, the plan reflects not only the basic AFDC program of cash assistance defined in § 406 (b), but
also Title XX social services, see § 402 (a)(15) and 42 U. S. C. § 1397 et seq. (1970 ed., Supp. V), and,
if the State chooses to adopt them, the optional programs of EA, defined in § 406 (e), and AFDC-
Unemployed Fathers (AFDC-UF), established by § 407.
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§ 20.102 What is the Bureau’s policy in providing financial assistance and social
services under this part? (a) Bureau social services programs are a secondary, or
residual resource, and must not be used to supplement or supplant other
programs. (b) The Bureau can provide assistance under this part to eligible Indians
when comparable financial assistance or social services are either not available or not
provided by state, tribal, county, local or other federal agencies. (c) Bureau financial
assistance and social services are subject to annual Congressional
appropriations.
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SOCIAL SERVICES AND INCOME SUPPORT THROUGH TAX CREDIT ARE DISTINCT – SOCIAL
SERVICES ARE A PRECONDITION TO COLLECTING EITC
ALLARD 7
Assistant Professor of Political Science and Public Policy, Taubman Center for Public
Policy, Brown University
http://wcpc.washington.edu/news/seminars/docs/gettingThere2007-12-03.pdf
“Getting There or Losing Out: Place, Race, and Access to the Safety Net”
Perhaps surprisingly, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) has expanded to become the largest
means-tested program providing cash assistance to low-income households in America. Yet, at $40
billion in credits in 2002 (in $2006), the EITC still lags far behind public investments in social
services (House Committee on Ways and Means 2004). Moreover, individuals can only receive the EITC
if they are working. Social service programs that alleviate barriers to work are critical to many low-
income households if they are to find a job and take advantage of the assistance available through
the EITC. When looking at Figure 1, it is important to keep in mind that the CRS estimates capture only a
fraction of publicly funded social services. More accurate estimates of public expenditures for the broader
array of social or human services available to low-income populations would certainly exceed $100 billion
annually.
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TITLE XX IS FULLY INCLUSIVE, SPECIFYING FIVE GOALS AND ALL OF THE NECESSARY
SERVICE CATEGORIES
GISH 2
http://digital.library.unt.edu/govdocs/crs/permalink/meta-crs-3415:1
Domestic Social Policy Division, Congressional Research Service
SSBG = SOCIAL SRVICES BLOCK GRANTS
Use of Funds There are no federal eligibility criteria for SSBG participants. Thus, states have total
discretion to set their own eligibility criteria (except, as described above, the welfare reform law
established an income limit of 200% of poverty for recipients of services funded by TANF allotments that
are transferred to SSBG.) States also have wide discretion in the use of SSBG funds. Federal law
establishes the following broad goals toward which social services must be directed: ! achieving or
maintaining economic self-support to prevent, reduce, or eliminate dependency; ! achieving or
maintaining self-sufficiency, including reduction or prevention of dependency; CRS-5 ! preventing or
remedying neglect, abuse, or exploitation of children and adults unable to protect their own interests,
or preserving, rehabilitating or reuniting families; ! preventing or reducing inappropriate institutional care
by providing for community-based care, home-based care, or other forms of less intensive care;
and ! securing referral or admission for institutional care when other forms of care are not
appropriate, or providing services to individuals in institutions. The law also provides the
following examples of social services that may relate to these broad goals: child care, protective
services for children and adults, services for children and adults in foster care, home
management, adult day care, transportation, family planning, training and related services,
employment services, information, referral and counseling, meal preparation and delivery, health
support services, and services to meet special needs of children, aged, mentally retarded, blind,
emotionally disturbed, physically handicapped, alcoholics and drug addicts.
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For the purposes of consolidating Federal assistance to States for social services
into a single grant, increasing State flexibility in using social service grants, and
encouraging each State, as far as practicable under the conditions in that State, to
furnish services directed at the goals of--
(1) achieving or maintaining economic self-support to prevent, reduce, or eliminate dependency;
(2) achieving or maintaining self-sufficiency, including reduction or prevention of
dependency;
(3) preventing or remedying neglect, abuse, or exploitation of children and
adults unable to protect their own interests, or preserving, rehabilitating or
reuniting families;
(4) preventing or reducing inappropriate institutional care by providing for
community-based care, home-based care, or other forms of less intensive care; and
(5) securing referral or admission for institutional care when other forms of care
are not appropriate, or providing services to individuals in institutions,
there are authorized to be appropriated for each fiscal year such sums as may be
necessary to carry out the purposes of this title [42 USCS §§ 1397 et seq.].
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SOCIAL SERVICES IS LEGISLATIVE TERM OF ART THAT REQUIRES UNIFORMITY UNDER TITLE
XX
STATE OF MICHIGAN TITLE XX SOCIAL SERVICES BLOCK GRANT PLAN, 8
http://www.michigan.gov/documents/dhs/DHS-SSBG-FY08-09_250475_7.pdf
STATE OF MICHIGAN, Department of Human Services, Administration for Budget,
Analysis and Financial Management
Section 2006 of Title XX of the Social Security Act directs the Secretary to
establish uniform definitions of services for use by the states in preparing the
information to be submitted in the annual Social Services Block Grant report. These
services are defined in title 45, part 96, appendix A of the code of federal
regulations and are reflected in the state of Michigan's Title XX Social Services Block
Grant Report.
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These services are the categories used in reporting to the federal government on the use of Title XX, the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG).
1. Adoption Services
Adoption services are those services or activities provided to assist in bringing about the adoption of a child. Component services and activities may
include, but are not limited to, counseling the biological parent(s), recruitment of adoptive homes, and pre- and post-placement training and/or
counseling.
3. Congregate Meals
Congregate meals are those services or activities designed to prepare and serve one or more meals a day to individuals in central dining areas in order
to prevent institutionalization, malnutrition, and feelings of isolation. Component services or activities may include the cost of personnel, equipment,
and food; assessment of nutritional and dietary needs; nutritional education and counseling; socialization; and other services such as transportation
and information and referral.
4. Counseling Services
Counseling services are those services or activities that apply therapeutic processes to personal, family, situational, or occupational problems in order
to bring about a positive resolution of the problem or improved individual or family functioning or circumstances. Problem areas may include family and
marital relationships, parent-child problems, or drug abuse.
8. Employment Services
Employment services are those services or activities provided to assist individuals in securing employment or acquiring or learning skills that promote
opportunities for employment. Component services or activities may include employment screening, assessment, or testing; structured job skills and
job seeking skills; specialized therapy (occupational, speech, physical); special training and tutoring, including literacy training and pre-vocational
training; provision of books, supplies and instructional material; counseling, transportation; and referral to community resources.
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Recreational services are those services or activities designed to provide, or assist individuals to take advantage of, individual or group activities
directed towards promoting physical, cultural, and/or social development.
25. Special Services for Persons With Developmental or Physical Disabilities, or Persons With Visual or Auditory Impairments
Special services for persons with developmental or physical disabilities, or persons with visual or auditory impairments, are services or activities to
maximize the potential of persons with disabilities, help alleviate the effects of physical, mental or emotional disabilities, and to enable these persons to
live in the least restrictive environment possible. Component services or activities may include personal and family counseling; respite care; family
support; recreation; transportation; aid to assist with independent functioning in the community; and training in mobility, communication skills, the use of
special aids and appliances, and self-sufficiency skills. Residential and medical services may be included only as an integral, but subordinate, part of
the services.
26. Special Services for Youth Involved in or at Risk of Involvement With Criminal Activity
Special services for youth involved in or at risk of involvement with criminal activity are those services or activities for youth who are, or who may
become, involved with the juvenile justice system and their families. Components services or activities are designed to enhance family functioning
and/or modify the youth's behavior with the goal of developing socially appropriate behavior and may include counseling, intervention therapy, and
residential and medical services if included as an integral but subordinate part of the service.
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B. VIOLATION – THE AFF DOESN’T DIRECTLY CONTRIBUTE TO A SOCIAL SERVICE. THEY JUST
CHANGE REGULATIONS TO MAKE OTHER PARTIES INCREASE SOCIAL SERVICES.
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1. LIMITS – ANY REGULATION COULD SOMEHOW SERVE SOCIETY. LETTING IN THIRD PARTY
MANDATES ALLOWS ANY REGULATION OF BUSINESS, ADJUSTMENT TO THE TAX CODE, OR
RELAXATION OF RESTRICTION ON THE STATES, WHICH ENCOMPASSES ALL DOMESTIC
LEGISLATION. THAT’S UNFAIR AND MAKES DEBATE BAD BY FORCING US TO COMPENSATE
WITH SHALLOW GENERICS
3. EFFECTS INDEPENDENTLY BAD – EVEN IF THE AFF INCREASES SOME SOCIAL SERVICE, THE
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ISN’T DIRECTLY INCREASING BUT ONLY ACTING INDIRECTLY
THROUGH SOME PUPPET AGENT. THAT DESTROYS LIMITS AND NEG GROUND BECAUSE THE
AFFS CAN PRESERVE CONDITIONS FOR SOCIAL SERVICES BY STOPPING A NUCLEAR WAR OR
IMPROVING THE ECONOMY.
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IT’S THE BEST AND MOST PRECISE DEFINTION OF FEDERAL POLICY – BROADER ONES
CREATE UNPREDICTABLE VAGUENESS
REIN 72
# Decentralization and Citizen Participation in Social Services
# Author(s): Martin Rein
# Source: Public Administration Review, Vol. 32, Special Issue: Curriculum Essays on
Citizens, Politics, and Administration in Urban Neighborhoods (Oct., 1972), pp. 687-700
# Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Society for Public
Administration
# Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/975233
Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning,
1970 to Present
C. VOTE NEG FOR THE LIMITS ARGUMENT IN REIN. WITHOUT A CLEAR IDENTIFYING ASPECT
OF A PROGRAM, ALTERNATIVE DEFINTIONS CAN INCLUDE ANY MEDICAL PROGRAM OR
EMPLOYMENT BOOSTER. THAT’S UNFAIR BECAUSE IT COVERS LITERALLY ALL OF DMOESTIC
POLICY, AND BAD FOR DEBATE BECAUSE NEGS NECESSARILY RESORT TO SHALLOW
GENERICS.
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A. SOCIAL SERVICES ARE NOT HOUSING, WATER, HEALTH CARE, FOOD OR SANITATION.
Replace the phrase “social services” as used throughout this section with either
“amenities” or “basic needs” given that water, housing, healthcare, food and
sanitation are key to human survival and if one can achieve that then they move
to the next level which is that of social services.
C. VOTE NEG
2. LIMITS – BASIC SURVIVAL NEEDS CAN COVER ALL OF HOUSING POLICY AND FOOD STAMPS
AND DISEASE PREVENTION. ANYTHING THAT SAVES LIVES IN AN ENORMOUSLY EXPANSIVE
TOPIC.
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B. VIOLATION – THE AFF SERVICE IS INDIVIDUAL NOT SOCIAL BECAUSE THEY ADDRESS
______ [HEALTH OR EDUCATION]
1. EACH WORD MUST HAVE MEANING – STRIPPING SOCIAL OF MEANING DESTROYS LIMITS,
SINCE ANYTHING CAN BE CHARACTERIZED AS SOME SORT OF SERVICE. ONLY THE
ADJECTIVE STOPS THE AFF FROM INCLUDING ANY PIECE OF DOMESTIC LEGISLATION.
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Defines social services as helping people in need, reducing poverty, improving outcomes of low-
income children, revitalizing low-income communities, and services empowering low-income
people to become self-sufficient.
The term “social services” does not include programs delivering educational assistance under the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act or the Higher Education Act
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SOCIAL SERVICES DOESN’T INCLUDE MEDICAL TASKS – IT’S DISTINCT FROM THE HEALTH
SECTOR
Pollack et al 94
Professor for Public Policy, Departments of Psychiatry, Public Health & Preeventive
Medicine, and Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology, OHSU
Prioritization of Mental Health Services in Oregon
# David A. Pollack, Bentson H. McFarland, Robert A. George and Richard H. Angell
# The Milbank Quarterly, Vol. 72, No. 3 (1994), pp. 515-550
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MEDICARE DEFINES MEDICAL SOCIAL SERVICES ONLY THOSE THAT ASSIST IN DIAGNOSIS
AND TREATMENT – THAT’S A KEY LIMIT
Department of health and human services 4
http://fdsys.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-1994-12-20/html/94-31065.htm
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 94-31065]
Comment: One commenter objected to this section's requirement that covered medical
social services must be necessary to resolve social or emotional problems that
are expected to be an impediment to the treatment of the beneficiary's medical
conditionor to his or her rate of recovery. The commenter stated that the services of a
social worker may address a wide range of difficulties in addition to those that present
an impediment to the treatment of the beneficiary's medical condition. Response:
The Act at section 1861(m) specifically defines medical social services as a
covered home health service. In addition, section 1862(a)(1)(A) of the Act excludes
from Medicare coverage any service that is not reasonable and necessary for the
diagnosis or treatment of the patient's illness or injury. Therefore, Medicare is
limited to covering those social services that are provided to treat the patient's
medical condition; that is, they are directed at resolving impediments to the treatment
of the patient's illness or injury.
B. VIOLATION – THE AFFIRMATIVE COVERS HEALTH CARE THAT ISN’T A SOCAIL SERVICE –
THEIR SERVICES DON’T INVOLVE A SOCIAL WORKER AND AREN’T JUST A SUPPLEMENT TO
ALLOW TREATMENT OF THE ILLNESS.
C. VOTE NEG
Federal and state public payers are influenced by the broader political process of
apportioning tax dollars to an array of public services—health care being only one
among many. Similarly, private insurers, 13 account- able to purchasers and
shareholders who drive prices down, have created capitation arrangements, utilization
reviews, and a rigorous definition of what constitutes health care (as distinct from
social services) in order to control costs.
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As a former Schwartz Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, Ms. Brownlee’s
work focused on the U.S. health care system, and the cultural, economic, and political
forces that result in poor quality and high cost. She has written extensively about the
lack of scientific evidence for many medical practices, and the problem of unnecessary
care, which accounts for as much as a third of the nation’s health care bill. She is
currently writing Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Americans Sicker and
Poorer, which will be published by Bloomsbury Press in 2007.
At 17 percent of gross domestic product, health care is the biggest single sector of
the economy, and it's consuming a larger and larger proportion every year.
3. TOPICAL VERSION OF YOUR AFF – WE CAN LET IN HEALTH CARE AS LONG AS IT MEETS
THE STRICT DEFINTION SET OUT IN FEDERAL LAW FOR MEDICAL SOCIAL SERVICES
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1. The services of these professionals are necessary to resolve social and emotional
problems that are or are expected to be an impediment to the effective treatment of the
patient’s medical condition or his or her rate of recovery; and
2. The plan of care indicates how the services that are required necessitate the skills
of a qualified social worker or a social work assistant under the supervision of a
qualified medical social worker to be performed safely and effectively.
When the two requirements above are satisfied, services of these professionals that may be
covered include, but are limited to:
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Medical social services are defined to mean services rendered, under the
direction of a physician by a qualified social worker holding a master's degree
from an accredited school of social work, including but not limited to (A) assessment
of the social, psychological and family problems related to or arising out of such covered
person's illness and treatment; (B) appropriate action and utilization of community
resources to assist in resolving such problems; (C) participation in the development of
the overall plan of treatment for such covered person.
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Even though social services are categorized as person-based assistance, they have a
distinct spatial or place component. Promoting economic self-sufficiency and greater
well-being through a service-based safety net hinges on how accessible services are to
those in need. Place matters more in a service-based safety net reliant upon local
governmental and nonprofit agencies than a system that primarily provides assistance
through cash assistance of income maintenance programs. Unlike welfare cash
assistance, the EITC, or food stamps, social services cannot be mailed or electronically
transferred to an individual.
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THE COMMON USE OF SOCIAL SERVICES CAN COVER ANYTHING – YOUR COUNTERINTERP
CAN’T SOLVE LIMITS.
PARHAM 82
Practice Issues in Social Welfare Administration, Policy and Planning, ED LEBOVITZ
Mr. Parham retired in 1994 as professsor of social welfare at the University of Georgia.
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A. TWITTER
RUBEL 3/18/9
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202429165569&slreturn=1
Gina F. Rubel Esq. is president and CEO of Furia Rubel Communications Inc.
Twitter is a social service for people to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of
140-character answers to one simple question: What are you doing?
B. CHAT ROOMS
Kaynar and Hamburger 7
a
Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel
b
Bezeq International Research Center for Internet Psychology, Sammy Ofer School of
Communications, Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), Herzliya 46150, Israel
Computers in Human Behavior
Volume 24, Issue 2, March 2008, Pages 361-371
Part Special Issue: Cognition and Exploratory Learning in Digital Age
A possible reason for these findings may lie in our definition of social services as
information services. Our social services factor includes mainly items that enable the
user to maintain his social connections on-line, such as Chat rooms, real-time
messaging systems, and on-line Forums enabling the exchange of opinions between
Internet users
C. HAPPINESS
DUBOS 82
http://www.tfwallace.com/pages_blocks_v3/images/links/CelebrationofLife.pdf
Rene Dubos, a Pulitzer Prize winning biologist, died
February 20, 1982.
Happiness is contagious. For this reason its expression is a social service and
almost a duty. The Buddhists have a saying about this commendable virtue: "Only
happy people can make a happy world."
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A/T DEFINITIONS FROM OTHER COUNTRIES [LOOK FOR SUFFIX – UK, EU, ETC.]
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CAN’T MIX AND MATCH INTERNATIONAL CARDS – IT RESULTS IN HOPELESS TERM CONFUSION
SHLONSKY 71
Paul Baerwald School of Social Work, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
# Hagith R. Shlonsky
# The Social Service Review, Vol. 45, No. 4 (Dec., 1971), pp. 414-425
# Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Welfare Programs and the Social System: A Conceptual Examination of "Social Services" and "Income
Maintenance Services"
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US DEFINITIONS ARE DISTINCT AND MORE NARROW THAN THE BRITISH DEFINTION
Salomon 94
Who Benefits from the Nonprofit Sector? By Charles T. Clotfelter
Google books, p. 135-6
Dr. Salamon is a leading expert on alternative tools of government action and on the
nonprofit sector in the U.S. and around the world. He has served as deputy associate
director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget and has taught at Harvard,
Vanderbilt, and Duke Universities and at Tougaloo College in Mississippi. He holds a
Ph.D. in government from Harvard University and a B.A. in economics and policy
studies from Princeton University. He has written or edited over 20 books; his articles
have appeared in Foreign Affairs, the New York Times, Voluntas, and numerous other
publications. His most recent books include: The Tools of Government: A Guide to the
New Governance (Oxford University Press, 2002); The State of Nonprofit America
(Brookings Institution Press, 2003); and Global Civil Society: Dimensions of the
Nonprofit Sector, Volume II (Kumarian Press, 2004).
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A/T UN DEFINITION
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Most of these programs base eligibility on individual, household, or family income, but
some use group or area income tests (see Table 7 — page 16); and a few offer help on
the basis of presumed “need.” Most provide income “transfers.” That is, they transfer
income, in the form of cash, goods, or services, to persons who make no payment and
render no service in return.
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Such programs include, but are not limited to, the following: (i) child care services, protective services for
children and adults, services for children and adults in foster care, adoption services, services related to
the management and maintenance of the home, day care services for adults, and services to meet the
special needs of children, older individuals, and individuals with disabilities (including physical, mental, or
emotional disabilities); (ii) transportation services; (iii) job training and related services, and employment
services; (iv) information, referral, and counseling services; (v) the preparation and delivery of meals and
services related to soup kitchens or food banks; (vi) health support services; (vii) literacy and mentoring
programs; (viii) services for the prevention and treatment of juvenile delinquency and substance abuse,
services for the prevention of crime and the provision of assistance to the victims and the families of
criminal offenders, and services related to intervention in, and prevention of, domestic violence; and (ix)
services related to the provision of assistance for housing under Federal law.
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SOCIAL SERVICES CAN INCLUDE ANYTHING THAT IMPROVES PEOPLE’S STANDARD OF LIVING
DEVELOPMENT EDUCATION PROGRAM OF THE WORLD BANK 00
http://www.unesco.org/education/tlsf/TLSF/theme_c/mod13/www.worldbank.org/depweb
/english/modules/glossary.htm
Social services.
Services generally provided by the government that help improve people's
standard of living; examples are public hospitals and clinics, good roads, clean
water supply, garbage collection, electricity, and telecommunications.
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That schools provide education and that education is a social service is undeniable.
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Medicare provides health care coverage for 40 million elderly. Medicaid provides health care for 34 million
poor people, people with disabilities, and seniors in nursing homes. Medicare is an entitlement.
Medicaid is a social service.
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It is generally recognized that housing is a form of social services. As Richard M. Titmuss pointed
out. social services can be defined as all collectively provided services which are deliberately
designed to meet certain socially recognized needs. Therefore, government regarded housing as a
form of social services which is provided jointly with education, medical and health and other
services to the most needed in the society
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Public funds to provide subsidized family planning come from diverse federal and state
programs. The federal government makes funds available for family planning services
through four major sources: Title X of the Public Health Service Act, and Titles V, XIX
and XX of the Social Security Act. The latter three sources are better known as the
maternal and child health (MCH) block grant, Medicaid and the social services block
grant, respectively. The importance of each of these individual funding sources for
family planning services varies across states, since each state can structure its family
planning effort individually.
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SOCIAL SERVICES IS THE BROADER TERM – IT’S CONTEXTUALLY DISTINCT FROM ITS
NARROWER COUNTERPART
WILTSE 58
Social Casework and Public Assistance
Kermit T. Wiltse
The Social Service Review, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Mar., 1958), pp. 41-50
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Dean of School of Social Welfare, UC Berkeley
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A/T TITLE XX
TITLE XX FAILS – IT DOESN’T PROVIDE ANY LIMIT BECAUSE LITERALLY ANYTHING CAN BE
INTERPRETED WITHIN ITS FIVE GOALS. ALOS – IT TECHNICALLY PROHIBITS EXCLUSIONS.
WICKENDEN 76
# Elizabeth Wickenden
# The Social Service Review, Vol. 50, No. 4 (Dec., 1976), pp. 570-585
# Published by: The University of Chicago Press
a social welfare and Social Security policy consultant, analyst, and writer, and professor
of public policy and urban studies. Documented are her positions in the Transient
Bureau of the Works Progress Administration, Federal Security Agency, and Federal
Emergency Relief Administration from 1933 to 1941; her membership on the Kennedy
Task Force on Health and Social Security Legislation (1960-1961) and the Advisory
Council on Public Welfare (1964-1967); her work for the American Public Welfare
Association in 1941; her activities as a consultant to national social welfare
organizations such as the National Social Welfare Assembly, YWCA, National Urban
League, Child Welfare League of America, Children's Defense Fund, and Project on
Social Welfare Law; and her leading role in the Study Group on Social Security and the
Save Our Security coalition. Also reflected are her activities as Professor of Urban
Studies at the City University of New York (1966-1974) and at Fordham University
(1979-1983)
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The same reasons used by the appellate court may be adopted in construing the
language of the statute herein involved. If the words "for industrial use" mean no
more than the words "articles of utility," there could be no reason for inserting
the additional words"for industrial use" in the paragraph. Therefore, it must be held
that the [*135] new language "for industrial use" was intended to have a different
meaning from the words "articles of utility," as construed in the case of Progressive Fine
Arts Co. v. United States, [**8] supra.
Webster's New International Dictionary defines the word "industrial" as follows:
Industrial. 1. Relating to industry or labor as an economic factor, or to a branch or the
branches of industry; of the nature of, or constituting, an industry or industries * * * .
The transferring of the scenes on an oil painting to a printed copy is a branch of industry
under the definition above quoted.
Some of the meanings of the preposition "for" signify intent, as shown by the
following definition in the same dictionary:
For. 2. Indicating the end with reference to which anything is, acts, serves, or is done;
as: a. As a preparation for; with the object of; in order to be, become, or act as;
conducive to. * * *.
d. Intending, or in order, to go to or in the direction of.
Therefore, the words "articles for industrial use" in paragraph 1807 imply that
Congress intended to exclude from that provision articles either purchased or
imported with the intention to use the same in industry for manufacturing purposes.
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Each year, generally in the fall, the U.S. Census Bureau issues a report on poverty in
the United States. Among other information, it provides statistics on how many
people are poor, and on how poverty is distributed by age, by race or ethnicity, by
region, and by family type. Individuals or families are poor if their annual pretax cash
income falls below a federal measure of poverty that is also recalculated each year. The
Census Bureau's most recent poverty report is for 2007, and was issued in August 2008
as a combined report, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United
States: 2007.
Since 1965, there have been two slightly different versions of the federal poverty
measure:
The poverty thresholds are the original version of the federal poverty measure
(developed by Mollie Orshansky of the Social Security Administration). They are
updated each year by the Census Bureau. The thresholds are used mainly for statistical
purposes—for instance, preparing the estimates of the number of Americans in poverty
for each year's report. Values of the poverty thresholds for the years 1980–2007 for
families of different sizes are available on the Census Bureau's Web site. For example,
for a four-person family unit with two children, the 2007 poverty threshold is $21,027.
For one- or two-person family units, the poverty thresholds differ by age; the 2007
threshold for one individual under age 65 is $10,787, whereas for an individual 65 or
over it is $9,944.
The poverty guidelines are the other version of the federal poverty measure. They are
issued each year, generally in the winter, in the Federal Register by the Department of
Health and Human Services (HHS). The guidelines are a simplification of the poverty
thresholds for use for administrative purposes—for instance, determining
financial eligibility for certain federal programs. They are adjusted for families of
different sizes.
Poverty guidelines for the years since 1982 and other historical information appear on
the Web page "Poverty Guidelines, Research, and Measurement" of the Office of the
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Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services. Separate HHS poverty guidelines for Alaska and Hawaii reflect Office
of Economic Opportunity administrative practice beginning in the 1966-1970 period.
Both the thresholds and the guidelines are the same for all mainland states, regardless
of regional differences in the cost of living. Both are updated annually for price changes
using the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U). The poverty
guidelines are sometimes loosely referred to as the "federal poverty level" or "poverty
line," but these terms are ambiguous, and should be avoided in situations (e.g.,
legislative or administrative) where precision is important.
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The HHS poverty guidelines are used in setting eligibility criteria for a number of
federal programs. Some programs actually use a percentage multiple of the
guidelines, such as 125 percent, 150 percent, or 185 percent. This is not the result of a
single coherent plan; instead, it stems from decisions made at different times by
different congressional committees or federal agencies.
* HHS: Community Services Block Grant, Head Start, Low-Income Home Energy
Assistance, Children's Health Insurance Program
* Department of Agriculture: Food Stamps; Special Supplemental Nutrition Program
for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); the National School Lunch and School
Breakfast programs
* Department of Energy: Weatherization Assistance
* Department of Labor: Job Corps, Senior Community Service Employment Program,
National Farmworker Jobs Program
* Legal Services Corporation: Legal services for the poor
Certain relatively recent provisions of Medicaid use the poverty guidelines; however, the
rest of that program (accounting for roughly three-quarters of Medicaid eligibility
determinations) does not use the guidelines.
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POVERTY PROGRAMS TARGET WITH MEANS TESTING TO ENSURE THEY ARE FOR THE POOR.
THAT’S A KEY LIMIT
COONTZ ET AL 99
American families
By Stephanie Coontz, Maya Parson, Gabrielle Raley
Author Stephanie Coontz teaches history and family studies at The Evergreen State
College in Olympia, WA.
2. LIMITS – ALL PROGRAMS AFFECT THE POOR IN SOME WAY, AND ALL SOCIAL PROBLEMS
DISPROPRTIONATELY IMPACT PEOPLE IN POVERTY, INCLUDING WAR, NANOTECH,
POLLUTION, AND INJUSTICE.
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Legal scholars have struggled to determine the scope of the public use requirement as
envisioned by the Framers. n134 This struggle has occurred due to the lack of evidence
as to what the Framers intended by implementing the public use language of the Fifth
Amendment. n135 According to strict textualists, the three words "for public use,"
located just after "taken" but before "without just compensation," imply that private
property must be taken for a "public use." n136
Additionally, textualists argue that the phrase "for public use" is narrowing rather
than broadening the public use requirement under the Takings Clause. n137 For
example, the preposition "for" appears only two other times in the Fifth Amendment, and
both times, there is little doubt that the phrases are seen as narrowing the scope of the
Amendment. n138
Finally, if the Framers intended a broad interpretation of "for public use," the
Framers would have used such a phrase.n139 For example, [*370] the Takings
Clause does not state "nor shall private property be taken, unless for public use" or
"taken for legitimate public purpose." n140
THE PREPOSITION FOR DENOTES THE CHIEF USE OF A GIVEN STATUTORY PROVISION
UNITED STATES COURT OF CUSTOMS AND PATENT APPEALS 79
THE UNITED STATES V. SORTEX CO. OF NORTH AMERICA, INC.
NO. 78-14, C.A.D. 1221
UNITED STATES COURT OF CUSTOMS AND PATENT APPEALS
66 C.C.P.A. 57; 596 F.2D 1002; 1979 CCPA LEXIS 276; C.A.D. 1221
We cannot adopt the Government's interpretation [***12] of TSUS 666.25, because it ignores the
grammatical construction of the provision. In the heading "Industrial machinery for preparing and
manufacturing food of drink" both verbs are used in the identical form, as gerunds following the
preposition "for." The Government would have us construe the first gerund, "preparing," as establishing
for what the machine must be used, and the second gerund, "manufacturing," as establishing where (in or
at what place) the machine must be used. Such a construction disregards the fact that both gerunds are
objects of the preposition "for." If Congress had intended to create a where-used requirement, it would
have used another prepositional phrase, e.g., industrial machinery for preparing food or drink in a
manufacturing operation. Since both gerunds follow the preposition for, both must be construed as
establishing the for-what-use requirement.
Furthermore, since TSUS item 666.25 is a chief use provision, the phrase "for preparing and
manufacturing food or drink" cannot be construed as creating two for-what chief use requirements, it
being impossible to have two chief uses under the definition of chief use in TSUS General Interpretative
[***13] Rule 10(e)(i). This rule defines chief use as "the use which exceeds all other uses (if any)
combined." Obviously, there cannot be two uses each of which exceeds all other uses combined.
In view of this and the fact that there is only a subtle distinction between [**1007] the meaning of the
verbs "prepare" and "manufacture" when used in the context of foods (e.g., Is frozen orange juice
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prepared or manufactured?), we conclude that the phrase "for preparing and manufacturing food or
drink" must be construed as creating just one for-what chief use requirement.
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The importance of prepositions and their use in the English language cannot be overstated.
Prepositions show relationships in time and space. Prepositions also help establish logical relationships
between ideas. Communicative English that is logical and easy to understand does rely strongly on
the correct use of prepositions and prepositional phrases.
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PRECISION – THE CENSUS BUREAU OFFICIALLY DEFINES THE TERMS “PEOPLE IN POVERTY”
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 9
http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/faq.shtml#programs
How many people are in poverty in the United States? How many people are in
poverty in [my state OR my county OR my city]?
The Census Bureau is the federal agency that prepares statistics on the number of
people in povertyin the United States. To obtain figures on the number of people in
poverty since 1959, visit the Poverty section of the Census Bureau’s web site, or
contact the Census Bureau’s Demographic Call Center Staff at (301) 763-2422 or 1-
866-758-1060 (toll-free), or visit <http://ask.census.gov>.
The Census Bureau’s poverty statistics represent the number of people below the
Census Bureau poverty thresholds. Neither the Census Bureau nor the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services prepare tabulations of the number of people
below the HHS poverty guidelines, which are a simplified version of the poverty
thresholds used for program eligibility purposes. The best approximation for the
number of people below the HHS poverty guidelines in a particular area would be the
number of persons below the Census Bureau poverty thresholds in that area.
[ Go to Questions ]
Since there is an official federal definition of “poverty,” does the federal government
also have official definitions for such terms as “middle class,” “middle income,” “rich,”
and “upper income”?
No. The federal government does not have official definitions for such terms as “middle
class,” “middle income,” “rich,” and “upper income.”
Following the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) Statistical Policy Directive
14, the Census Bureau uses a set of money income thresholds that vary by family
size and composition to determine who is in poverty. If a family’s total income is
less than the family’s threshold, then that family and every individual in it is considered
in poverty. The official poverty thresholds do not vary geographically, but they are
updated for inflation using Consumer Price Index (CPI-U). The official poverty
definition uses money income before taxes and does not include capital gains or
noncash benefits (such as public housing, Medicaid, and food stamps).
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Second, changes in poverty have become harder the longer that the statistic has
gone without changes, in part because the current poverty measure is used by a
large number of programs. According to a recent Congressional Research Service
estimate (Gabe, 2007), 82 federal programs use the official poverty rate
(typically as a basis for 20 allocating funds) or the Poverty Guidelines (typically as one
element in their eligibility determinations.)
The federal poverty measure is the most commonly used indicator of the material well-
being of low-income Americans. It compares an individual’s or a family’s income to the amount
believed necessary to meet a minimum standard of living. For almost four decades, it has been the
primary statistic by which the extent of U.S. poverty is measured and by which federal, state, and
local governments allocate means-tested social welfare benefits.
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This paper was prepared as the Presidential Address to the Association for Public Policy
Analysis and Management at their annual conference, November 8-10, 2007.
This methodology was imbedded as the official poverty calculation when the Bureau of the Budget (now
the Office of Management and Budget, OMB) issued a directive in 1969 stating that the Census
Bureau should calculate and report this figure annually.6 I will return to this point below, but note here
that this is relatively unusual. Most government statistics are not defined by an OMB directive, but are
under the control and jurisdiction of one of the U.S. statistical agencies which has authority to implement
improvements and updates over time. In contrast, any change in the official measurement of poverty
requires a change in this directive. Since OMB sits within the Executive Office of the President, this
means the White House needs to sign off on any change, a point that will be quite important later in
this paper
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The “poverty thresholds” are used by the Census Bureau to calculate the number of people in
poverty.
THE RESOLUTIONAL PHRASE IS A CENSUS TERM OF ART
GOVERNOR’S OFFICE FOR SUBSTANCE ABUSE PREVENTION NO DATE
http://www.data.gosap.governor.virginia.gov/GOSAP_App/DocumentsUploaded/200506
06132236.Poverty%20All%20Ages.pdf
This database is a project of the Governor's Office for Substance Abuse Prevention
(GOSAP) Collaborative. Virginia’s state agencies are collaborating to provide
information that impacts the development of our children and the well-being of our
communities on this easy-to-use site. Please visit often as we frequently are adding
data and enhancing what the database can do. Please use the Feedback form (upper
right) to give us your comments and ideas for making it more useful.’
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Persons living in poverty were identified with a standard used by federal
government agencies: total income is adjusted to a poverty threshold that varies
depending on the size and composition of a family.
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THE FOLLOWING MEANS-TESTED PROGRAMS DON’T MEET OUR DEFINTION OF “FOR PERSON
IN POVERTY”
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 9
http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/faq.shtml#programs
Major means-tested programs that do not use the poverty guidelines in determining
eligibility include the following:
* Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and its predecessor, Aid to
Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) (in most cases)
* Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
* Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)
* State/local-funded General Assistance (in most cases)
* Large parts of Medicaid (69 percent of eligibles in Fiscal Year 2004)
* Section 8 low-income housing assistance
* Low-rent public housing
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This report excludes income maintenance programs that are not income-tested,
including social insurance and many veterans’ benefits, and all but two
tax-transfer programs. Thus, it excludes Social Security cash benefits,
unemployment compensation, and Medicare. Outlays for the Old-Age, Survivors,
and Disability Insurance programs (Social Security cash benefit programs) in FY2002
totaled $456 billion, financed primarily from payroll tax collections. The report also
excludes payments, even though financed with general revenues, that may be
regarded as “deferred compensation,” such as veterans’ housing
benefits and medical care for veterans with a service-connected
disability.
VETERANS BENEFITS DON’T DIRECT TO POVERTY – THEY APPLY TO ALL VETERAN’S AND
PRIORITIZE ON THE BASIS OF DISABILITY
BURKE 11/25/3
http://wikileaks.org/leak/crs/RL32233.pdf
Cash and Noncash Benefits for Persons with Limited Income: Eligibility Rules, Recipient
and Expenditure Data, FY2000-FY2002
Vee Burke, Specialist in Income Maintenance, Domestic Social Policy Division,
CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH
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Poverty guidelines differ slightly from poverty thresholds. The guidelines are a
simplification of the poverty thresholds for administrative purposes such as determining
the financial eligibility for certain federal programs. The Department of Health and
Human Services issues poverty guidelines each year in the Federal Register. Poverty
guidelines are designated by the year that they are issued. For instance, the guidelines
issued generally in the beginning of 1999 are designated the 1999 poverty guidelines,
but reflect only the price changes through the 1998 calendar year; they are
approximately equal to the Census Bureau poverty thresholds for the 1998 calendar
year.
Programs and policies that use poverty guidelines to determine eligibility include
Head Start, the National School Lunch Program, the Food Stamp Program, the Low-
Income Home Energy Assistance Program, the Oregon Health Plan, and the Oregon
Working Families Child Care Credit. These guidelines are used for many, but not all,
federal, state, and local poverty programs. The Federal Earned Income Tax Credit is
one example that does not use the poverty guidelines. Public Housing programs,
such as Section 8, uses the area median income to determine eligibility.
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Eligible under Public Health Service regulations are persons of American Indian
or Alaskan Native (AI/AN) descent who: (1) are members of a federally recognized
Indian tribe; (2) reside within an IHS Health Service Delivery Area (HSDA); or (3) are the
natural minor children (18 years old or younger) of such an eligible member and reside
within an IHS HSDA. The program imposes no income test; any eligible AI/AN can
receive health services. The program serves Indians living on federal reservations,
Indian communities in Oklahoma and California, and Indian, Eskimo, and Aleut
communities in Alaska. According to the 2000 census, more than 57% of AI/AN reside in
urban areas. Under the Indian Health Care Improvement Act of 1976, P.L. 94-437, as
amended, the IHS contracts with 34 urban Indian organizations to make health services
more accessible to 605,000 urban Indians. Combined, all IHS programs serve between
1.6 million AI/AN.
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Eligibility Requirements1 A health center is an entity that provides health care services to a
medically underserved population, or a special medically underserved population comprised of
migratory and seasonal agricultural workers, the homeless, and residents of public housing by providing
required primary health services and additional health services as may be appropriate for particular
centers. By regulation, medically underserved areas are designated by the HHS Secretary on the basis of
such factors as: (1) ratio of primary care physicians to population, (2) infant mortality rate, (3) percentage
of population aged 65 and over, and (4) percentage of population with family income below the poverty
level. Profit-making organizations are not eligible for health center grants. All residents of an area
served by a health center are eligible for its services.
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Eligibility Requirements1 The law requires that priority for clinic services go to
persons from low-income families. Clinics must provide family planning services to all
persons who request them, but the priority target group has been women aged 15-44
from low-income families who are at risk of unplanned pregnancy. Clinics are required
to encourage family participation. Clinics must provide services free of charge
(except to the extent that Medicaid or other health insurers cover these services) to
persons whose incomes do not exceed 100% of the federal poverty income
guidelines ($18,400 for a family of four in the 48 contiguous states in 2003). A sliding
payment scale must be offered for those whose incomes are between 100% and 250%
of the poverty guideline.
A person must (a) have been admitted to the United States as a refugee or asylee
under the Immigration and Nationality Act or have been paroled as a refugee or asylee
under the Act, (b) be a Cuban or Haitian paroled into the United States between April 15
and October 20, 1980, and designated a “Cuban/Haitian entrant,” or be a Cuban or
Haitian national paroled into the United States after October 10, 1980, (c) be a person
who has an application for asylum pending or is subject to exclusion or deportation and
against whom a final order of deportation has not been issued, or (d) be a Vietnam-born
Amerasian immigrant fathered by a U.S. citizen. If a needy person in one of the
above groups meets the income and assets tests prescribed by his state for
Medicaid eligibility but does not otherwise qualify for that program because of its
categorical requirements, such as family composition, the person is eligible for RMA.
Under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996
(P.L. 104-193), as amended by P.L. 105-33, these persons are now eligible for 7 years
after entry (earlier law gave permanent eligibility). After 7 years their continued
participation is at state option, as it is with other legal permanent residents.5
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The HHS poverty guidelines, or percentage multiples of them (such as 125 percent, 150 percent, or 185 percent), are used as an
eligibility criterion by a number of federal programs, including those listed below. For examples of major means-tested programs
that do not use the poverty guidelines, see the end of this response.
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EVEN IF THE MEANS TESTING FORMULA VARIES, THE THRESHOLD IS UNIFORM AND
INVARIABLE
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 9
http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/faq.shtml#programs
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Let me take stock of this history. Despite widespread agreement about some of the
deficiencies of the current official poverty line, no substantial changes in that
measure have occurred. Furthermore, while the overall thrust of the NAS
recommendations were viewed as a credible alternative by many policy analysts and
researchers, there was disagreement about some of the specific
recommendations. As a result, agreement has not coalesced around one
specific alternative calculation. While the Census Bureau has been very
interested in poverty measurement and devoted substantial resources to new
experimental and alternative measures, its efforts have largely resulted in a
proliferation of alternatives measures without agreement on the
comparative merits of different measures.
The NAS committee discussed this explicitly in developing their measure for the poverty
thresholds, trying for a measure that would be acceptable to a broad population (hence,
expenditures on necessities plus a little more). Of course, given the role for judgment in
this decision, those who engage in poverty measurement can often be quite
influenced by their sense of where they want to end up. It is, perhaps, not surprising
that persons who believe poverty is an over-rated problem in the U.S. have argued for
imputing the value of in-kind benefits in resources without changing the thresholds
(which would unambiguously lower poverty counts.) Meanwhile, those who believe that
poverty is a serious problem are more likely to argue for methodologies that lead to
substantially higher thresholds (and hence higher poverty counts.)
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If we are serious about improving the measurement of poverty in the United States, I
would recommend taking four actions. None of these are quickly done, but will require
the active intervention of Congress, which means finding Members who will help make
these changes happen. Some support for these changes within the relevant cabinet
agencies would be helpful as well, as would support within the Administration for such
changes. Strong support from within the research community for these changes also will
be necessary.
1. Assign a statistical agency the authority to develop an alternative measure of
income poverty, based on the work already done to develop alternative poverty
measures. An important part of the assignment is the authority for this measure to be
regularly improved and updated.
We must remove control over poverty measurement from within the Executive Office of
the President if we want to produce a regularly updated and improved poverty measure.
Poverty measurement should be treated like all other statistics. Note that nothing in this
recommendation overturns the OMB directive asking that Census continue to compute
and report the current official poverty counts. Given this directive requires 32
Census to call this line the poverty rate, it might be very helpful to call the new measure
something else. My own recommendation is to call it the Revised Poverty Measure. It is
important that the agency be directed to produce one primary Revised Poverty
Measure, although of course ongoing reports in appendix tables on alternative
definitions are always useful. It is not useful, however, to produce 4 or 5 alternative
Revised Poverty Measures and expect people to figure out which is the best one to use.
The agency should be given a reasonable time line, by which point it should be annually
reporting the Revised Poverty Measure as part of its official responsibilities.
THEIR BEST AUTHOR CONCEDES THAT IT’S THE BEST EXISTANT GROUNDING
BLANK 7
http://ww.npc.umich.edu/publications/u/working_paper07-30.pdf
Rebecca Blank, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan and
Brookings Institution
“How to Improve Poverty Measurement in the United States”
National Poverty Center Working Paper Series #07-30, November 2007
This paper was prepared as the Presidential Address to the Association for Public Policy
Analysis and Management at their annual conference, November 8-10, 2007.
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I have spent some amount of my time over the past two decades working to change the
official poverty measure. This paper argues that working to change the current OMB
directive is not the appropriate place to expend effort. The current poverty
measures are what they are, imbedded inside a necessarily political agency
which has many reasons to avoid change. We need to escape the argumentative box
we have been in for several decades and assign responsibility for calculating a
Revised Poverty Measure to an agency prepared to take on such a task. At the
same time, we need to recognize the inherent limitations in any measure of income
poverty.
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Are the poverty guidelines before-tax or after-tax? Are they gross income or net income? What
definition of income is used with the poverty guidelines?
There is no simple answerto these questions. When determining program eligibility, some agencies
compare before-tax income to the poverty guidelines, while other agencies compare after-tax income.
Likewise, eligibility can be dependent on gross income, net income, or some other measure of
income. Federal, state, and local program offices that use the poverty guidelines for eligibility
purposes may define income in different ways. To find out the specific definition of income (before-
tax, after-tax, etc.) used by a particular program or activity, one must consult the office or organization that
administers that program.
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Over the years there have been a number of critiques of the way the government
measures poverty. One on-going critique is of the types of income that are included in
(or excluded from) the poverty measure. By failing to include income that many low-
income people receive in the form of public assistance, some critics maintain that
the extent of poverty is over-stated. If the value of food stamps, publicly provided
health insurance benefits, and cash welfare payments were counted as income in the
poverty calculation, many people would no longer be considered poor.
Another important critique of the official poverty measure is that it is seriously flawed
in continuing to assume that families spend one-third of their income on food.
This may have been true when the measure was devised 30 years ago, but it is not an
accurate reflection of current realities. Families no longer spend one-third of their
income on food and two-thirds on other basic needs. Food now accounts for something
closer to one-sixth of the family budget. Housing, transportation and utilities are much
larger components of family spending.
In recent years there have been more fundamental challenges to the poverty measure.
Concerned that the poverty rate is far too low, community-based organizations around
the country have advocated for "living wages." These groups have argued that instead
of using "poverty" as the standard to measure people's economic well-being, we should
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develop a measure of "living wages." Policy and research institutes around the country
have developed living wage budgets that take into account the full range of costs
required for families of different sizes to maintain a decent standard of living.
The bottom line is that the current system of measurement is out-dated and seriously
underestimates the count of the number of poor people in this country. If the government were to
acknowledge the true extent of poverty, it would need to dedicate a greater share of its resources to pay
the costs of programs to help the poor. It is unfortunately cheaper to use an outdated system of
measurement so that fewer people will be in poverty by government standards.
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The United States Census Bureau on September 26 will release its official report on
poverty and family income for 1990. And once again, this annual report will present a
misleading picture because of serious deficiencies in the way the Bureau
measures income and defines poverty. According to Census Bureau figures for recent
years there are still over thirty million Americans living in "poverty." This is a number
larger than that recorded in the mid- 1960s, when the War on Poverty was launched. To
be sure, such figures raise legitimate concerns about the persistence of poverty in an
otherwise prosperous society. This unremitting poverty is more perplexing because total
welfare spending, even after adjusting for inflation, rose throughout the 1970s and
1980s and is now at an all-time high. Why does the Census Bureau's poverty level
remain unchanged even while welfare spending increases? The answer is that once
again the Census Bureau's poverty figures are inaccurate. The Census Bureau's report
seriously misleads policy makers and American taxpayers, who are spending over $180
billion a yea to fight "poverty." In other words, the Census Bureau is dramatically
overstating the number of persons in poverty and understating the living standards of
low-income Americans. Key facts missing from Census report are that: 38 percent of the
persons whom the Census Bureau identifies as "pooe"own their own homes. The
median value of homes owned by poor persons in 1987 was $39,200 or 58 percent of
the median value of all homes owned by Americans in that year. 4; Nearly a half million
"poor"persons own homes worth over $100,000; 36,000 "poor"persons own homes
worth over $300,000; 62 percent of "poor"households own a car, 14 percent own two or
m6rd-cars; Nearly half of all "poor" households have air conditioning; 31 percent of all
"poor"housiholds have microwave ovens; Poor persons on average consume that same
level of vitamins, minerals, and protein as do middle class persons; poor children
actually-eat more meat and protein than do middle class children. The poor are not
hungry and undernourished; in fact poor adults are more likely to be overweight than
are middle-class persons. These facts are taken from unpublicized surveys gathered by
the Census Bureau and other government .s. But they are ignored by the Census
Bureau's official poverty report. They underscore the large conceptual gap betiveen the
"poor" as defined by the Census B 'ureau and what most ordinary Americans- consider
to be poverty..In reality, numerous other government reports indicate that most "pW"
Americans - -today are better housed, better fed, andown more personal property than
average U.S. citizens throughout most of this century. In 1988, for example, and: after
adjusting for inflation, the per capita expenditures of the lowest income one-fift of the
U.S. population exceeded the per capita income of the median American household in
1955-.
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The vast majority of U.S. research on poverty is based on the official U.S. measure.2
Occasionally, scholars modestly augment the measure with slight alterations or
supplement it with other indicators. However, most survey data sets supply researchers
with dichotomous variables identifying respondents as below or above the official level.
Typically, analysts simply use these simple dummy variables. Others analyze and
present historical trends in official poverty and debate whether poverty has increased
since the official measure was adopted in the early 1960s. This widespread use of the
official measure stands in stark contrast to what social scientists know and have written
about the limitations of the official measure.
In recent years, a consensus has emerged that is deeply critical of this measure.3
Betson and Warlick emphasize that the U.S. measure, “Is commonly acknowledged to
be inadequate for measuring poverty.”4 Wilson argues that the U.S. measure, “Does not
capture the real dimensions of hardship and deprivation, it also does not reflect the
changing depth or severity of poverty;” and that its income thresholds are “arbitrary.”5 In
1988, the Family Support Act called for a scientific review of the U.S. measure. In 1995,
the National Research Council (NRC), and specifically the Panel on Poverty and Family
Assistance, published the results of this review. The NRC panel, which included many
of America’s most influential poverty researchers, concluded, “The current poverty
measure has weaknesses both in the implementation of the threshold concept and in
the definition of family resources. Changing social and economic conditions over the
last three decades have made these weaknesses more obvious and more
3
consequential. As a result, the current measure does not accurately reflect differences
in poverty across population groups and across time. We conclude that it would be
inadvisable to retain the current measure for the future.”6
While there is widespread consensus that the current official measure of poverty in the
United States is badly flawed, three decades of discussion and debate have not
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resulted in any changes to this statistic. To a casual observer, this may seem puzzling in
a nation with a long tradition of regularly updated national statistics.
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Even though the work of Mollie Orshansky was well-done, based on the data available
in the early 1960s, the statistic that she suggested makes little sense in 2007 (and
Orshansky herself argued strongly for updating the poverty calculation in later years.)
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The criticisms of this methodology as a way to define a 2007 poverty rate are too
numerous to list in any complete form here.7 It is not too strong a statement to say that,
forty-three years after they were developed, the poverty thresholds are nonsensical
numbers. They are based on data from 1955 and do not reflect any information related
to current expenditures or needs. If one sticks with a threshold based only on food
costs, the current multiplier would be much higher, since food has become relatively
cheaper and food expenditures have declined precipitously as a share of overall
expenditures.8 But basing the threshold numbers on a single commodity is almost
surely not the correct way to calculate these thresholds, since it leaves the numbers
highly sensitive to the relative price of that commodity and insensitive to the price of any
other likely expenditures, such as housing, among low income families.
Poverty thresholds: The current poverty thresholds, often called the “poverty line,” are
based on the Economy Food Plan, a minimally adequate food budget used in the 1960s
when the poverty measure was developed. At the time, food expenditures represented
about one-third of after-tax income for the typical family, so the food plan amount was
multiplied by three to establish the poverty line. This outdated spending pattern probably
does not represent the current cost of meeting basic needs, and ignores some
unavoidable expenditures that were not as large forty years ago (such as taxes and
child care expenses). In addition, the thresholds do not accurately reflect differences in
family size and composition, as well as cost-of-living differences over time and between
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geographic areas. Conversely, the thresholds have not been corrected for past
overadjustments for inflation (especially for overstatements of the cost for home
ownership)
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The resource definition is also seriously flawed, as cash income alone is no longer an
adequate description of the discretionary resources available to low income families.
There is broad agreement that the resource measure should reflect after-tax income. In
the years after 1964, an increasing number of poor families began to pay federal
income taxes as inflation eroded the tax brackets. Tax reforms in the mid-1980s solved
this problem, giving the poor more disposable income, but these changes were not
reflected in the poverty numbers. In more recent years, the tax system has been a
source of additional funds for low income working families because of the redistributive
effects of refundable tax credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).
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THE POVERTY MEASURE FAILS BY NOT CALCULATING IN NON-CASH BENEFITS LIKE FOOD
STAMPS
BLANK 7
http://www.npc.umich.edu/publications/u/working_paper07-30.pdf
Rebecca Blank, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan and
Brookings Institution
“How to Improve Poverty Measurement in the United States”
National Poverty Center Working Paper Series #07-30, November 2007
This paper was prepared as the Presidential Address to the Association for Public Policy
Analysis and Management at their annual conference, November 8-10, 2007.
Furthermore, the growth in in-kind benefits from public programs strongly suggests that
in-kind benefits from near-cash programs such as food stamps or housing assistance
should be imputed into family income.10 These programs have increased the resources
available to low income families.
Income: The current poverty measure counts some but not all forms of income. It counts
welfare payments (about $4,200), because they are in cash. But it does not count
noncash benefits such as food stamps (about $2,200), housing assistance (about
$5,400), Medicaid (about $6,000 for a family of four), the State Children’s Health
Insurance Program (SCHIP) (about $1,000 per child), energy assistance (about $400),
the school lunch and breakfast programs (as much as $600 per child), and the Special
Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) (about $400
per person). It also does not count refundable tax credits such as the Earned Income
Tax Credit (EITC) (about $1,700), because they are “post-tax.” 2 It also ignores the
value of assets (especially home ownership), although it counts any income generated
by assets (but not capital gains or losses). And, although it counts the income of family
members living in the household, it excludes the income of nonfamily household members
such as boyfriends
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HISTORY PROVES THAT THE FEDERAL POVERY MEASURE IS ARBITRARY AND POLITICIZED
BRADY 7
http://www.duke.edu/~elb13/Papers/Brady_Roundtable.pdf
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Duke University
Chapter 2 of Politicizing Poverty, Socializing Equality (manuscript in progress)
The history of how the measure was constructed illustrates its deep flaws. Mollie
Orshansky, a statistician in the Social Security Administration, constructed the measure
in 1963. Orshansky used family consumption data from 1955 and what she called a
“crude” calculus of family budgets.7 Orshansky used the Department of Agriculture’s
(DOA) “low-cost food budget” and multiplied the dollar amount by three, speculating that
food amounted to one-third of a family’s expenses. She developed the line as a
research tool, never intended it as a policy instrument, and quickly repudiated it.
Contrary to her intentions, President Johnson’s Office of Economic Opportunity adopted
it as the official measure. But, they only did so after substituting the DOA’s “economy
food plan” which was about 25% below the “low-cost” plan. The food budgets have
never been revisited since the 1955 data, and the measure was solely adjusted for
inflation – which effectively severed the food-income link.
Historians, like O’Connor and Katz, have even shown that the threshold was
intentionally set low in order to make the elimination of poverty an attainable political
goal as part of Johnson’s “War on Poverty.”8 Rather than representing a scientific
absolute standard, the official threshold is politically motivated to classify a large
number of people as not poor that should reasonably be considered poor. The dubious
origins and significant elapsed time since the measure’s inception, at a minimum,
suggest routine review and updating. The NRC panel went one step further and argued,
“Our major conclusion is that the current measure needs to be revised.”9 Ultimately, it is
clear that the official measure was deeply flawed from the beginning.
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Moreover, one can judge the official measure in terms of the two main ways that social
scientists assess measurement: reliability and validity. By both of these standards, the
official measure is deeply problematic.
The official measure is the same across the entire U.S., is the same for all population
groups, and has been basically the same since its adoption in the mid-1960s. Hence, it
may seem surprising to fault its reliability. However, due to its constant application
across time, region and demographic groups, the measure became clumsily
incompatible with the changing realities of family life in the U.S.10 Because the
measure remains unchanged after thirty years, significant demographic, economic, and
policy changes are ignored. Most pressing, the official measure was constructed during
a time when the average family had two parents and a male breadwinner, while the
mother stayed home with the children. Now that many of the U.S. poor are single parent
or dual-earning couples, the official measure is inadequate for appreciating the
increased labor force participation of mothers, the relatedly escalating need and
expenses for childcare and health insurance, and the inappropriateness of antiquated
family size adjustments. Another development, the economic insecurity of the growing
elderly population – and their growing average ages – is not captured well by the official
measure. The official measure does not budget for chronic health conditions or health
care necessities like medication.
Relatedly, the share of family budgets devoted to different goods and services has
dramatically changed.11 Food no longer amounts to one-third of a family’s budget, and
more accurately is about one-sixth. When the official measure presumes that food is
one-third of a family’s expenses, it significantly understates the economic needs of a
household. Also, the inflationary adjustments to the official measure are based on the
cost of a basket of goods for the entire U.S. population (or at least all urban consumers)
– which may not represent price changes
5
for poor families. Over time, the U.S. measure has actually depreciated from its value in
1963, and become unreflective of what a family really needs to avoid poverty. Because
of rising consumption and living standards, the NRC concluded that updating the
poverty threshold solely with inflation is increasingly inadequate. In short, the U.S.
measure lacks reliability due in large part to the limited and weak means of adjusting the
measure since its inception.
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POVERTY IS THE MOST POLITICIZED STATISTIC – IT’S AN EXAMPLE OF HOW NOT TO DEFINE
BLANK 7
http://www.npc.umich.edu/publications/u/working_paper07-30.pdf
Rebecca Blank, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan and
Brookings Institution
“How to Improve Poverty Measurement in the United States”
National Poverty Center Working Paper Series #07-30, November 2007
This paper was prepared as the Presidential Address to the Association for Public Policy
Analysis and Management at their annual conference, November 8-10, 2007.
Why are we stuck in this place? I think there are at least primary reasons. First, and
most important is the odd historical accident that led the Executive Office of the
President to be in charge of the official poverty measure. Primary responsibility for
defining and updating virtually all other economic statistics lies within one of the
statistical agencies. Updating and changing economic statistics occurs all the time
within these agencies, even for statistics with much greater visibility, policy, and program
value than the poverty rate. For instance, major changes in the ways in which questions
were asked about employment created changes in employment and unemployment
numbers in 1993. Debate about the appropriate benchmarking for the Consumer Price
Index led to a series of quite substantial changes in how that statistic was calculated.
The underlying analysis for these changes is overseen by the statistical agencies; while
these agencies report to political appointees inside Executive Branch cabinet agencies,
there is a long tradition of allowing them to do their job with minimal intervention.
Control over the measure of poverty, however, resides at OMB. Any changes to the
current OMB directive will necessarily pass through key political decision-makers within
the White House. This means that they must take direct responsibility for any changes
in official poverty measurement, as opposed to simply approving the recommendations
of a statistical agency with some historical independence. Any White House (Republican
or Democratic), is likely to see far more costs than gains from such changes. If we need
an example of why economic statistics should be in the hands of statistical agencies,
the long-term stalemate over poverty measurement provides an excellent one! At a
minimum, this suggests that future poverty calculations need to be located in one of the
statistical agencies, which should be given explicit authority to make decisions over time
regarding this measure.
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DEEP METHODOLOGICAL FLAWS MAKE THE OFFICIAL MEASURE THE LEAST ACCURATE
POSSIBLE – IT SHOULD BE DISCOUNTED AS A DEFINTION
BRADY 7
http://www.duke.edu/~elb13/Papers/Brady_Roundtable.pdf
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Duke University
Chapter 2 of Politicizing Poverty, Socializing Equality (manuscript in progress)
The official measure’s lack of reliability is concerning, but its lack of validity may be even
worse. Essentially, the official measure fails to capture the complex nature of poverty.12
Many increasingly burdensome family expenses (e.g. health care and childcare) were
not included in the household budgets underlying the official measure. A household is
defined as poor or not poor based on their income before taxation. In tandem, in-kind
public assistance and near-cash benefits are entirely ignored when defining a
household’s income. Of course, neglecting these results in an inaccurate estimate of a
household’s economic resources.13 Even low-income workers pay payroll taxes, while
the earned income tax credit, housing subsidies, and food stamps have clearly raised
the economic resources of such households. Overall, however, failing to grasp the
financial reality of households these ways probably results in an underestimation of
poverty in the U.S.14
These validity problems have fluctuated over time and place and in turn, compromise
reliability even further.15 Some taxes vary across the U.S., and other taxes like payroll
taxes have increased enormously since the measure’s inception. Also, policy initiatives
have not been integrated into the measure. When the Children’s Health Insurance Plan
and Food Stamps program were implemented or Medicaid was updated, the official
measure was never revised. Finally, these validity problems prevent a reliable
comparison across population groups. For example, social security pensions, a major
resource for the elderly, count as income. But, major
6
resources for young families like food stamps, housing subsidies and childcare
vouchers do not. In the past fifteen years, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) has
grown into the largest assistance program for families with children – even larger than
Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF, what was previously called AFDC).16
Unfortunately, since the official measure is based on pretax income, the EITC is entirely
ignored.
As a result, the U.S. measure lacks both validity and reliability, and warrants revision.
We should be cautious in reading any social science that solely relies on this
problematic official U.S. measure. We should scrutinize any conclusions drawn from the
official measure. While the government probably lacks the political will to implement a
better measure of poverty, social scientists have no justification for continuing to rely on
this fundamentally flawed measure.
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USING THE POVERTY THRESHOLD IS THE WORST ACADEMIC STANDARD – IT’S SLOPPY AND
INACCURATE
BRADY 7
http://www.duke.edu/~elb13/Papers/Brady_Roundtable.pdf
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Duke University
Chapter 2 of Politicizing Poverty, Socializing Equality (manuscript in progress)
At the end of summer every year, U.S. citizens tell themselves a lie. Normally in the last
week of August, the Census Bureau releases the official rates of poverty for the
previous year. Following the Census report, pundits, politicians, the press and public
and even the President engage in their annual rehearsal of empty remarks on why
poverty is higher or lower than last year, and attribute this failure or success to things
that really have nothing to do with poverty’s true causes. These poverty figures define
how we see the trends and extent of poverty in society, and in turn, shape public debate
and policies regarding poverty. This entire episode is profoundly dishonest. The reason
that this ritual is so dishonest is because of the way that official U.S. poverty rates are
measured. Though the official U.S. measure of poverty dominates our understanding of
poverty, it simply lacks any justification as a measure of poverty. Thus, every year, we
spend a great deal of time and energy reporting, debating and scrutinizing an official
statistic that really is not defensible as a measure of poverty. The dishonesty of official
poverty is not entirely the responsibility of politicians or government bureaucrats.
Though guilty of an unwillingness to revise the official measure, it would be unusual for
politicians to intentionally misrepresent poverty statistics. In some ways, the dishonesty
is partly the fault of the American public and American social scientists. By participating
in the commentary regarding the official measures and using the official measures, we
give a credibility and legitimacy to a statistic that does not 1 warrant our respect.
Rather than perpetuating the dishonesty, social scientists must move beyond the official
measure and rethink the measurement of poverty. A wealth of scholarship has actually
made tremendous advances in poverty measurement. Several social scientists have
devised innovative and useful alternative techniques for the measurement of poverty.
For example, Sen received a Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998 for work that included
his revolutionary “Ordinal Approach” to measuring poverty. Though a few of these
techniques are impractical and/or flawed, many significant theoretical and
methodological advances have been made beyond the official measure. In the studies
that have emerged around these advances, it has become clear that how we define
poverty is truly consequential. As Hagenaars explained, “Both the population of poor
and the extent of their poverty appear to depend to a large extent on the definition
chosen.” Many scholars have shown that the number, composition and trends in U.S.
poverty are significantly different depending on the particular measure chosen. In fact,
simply ascertaining whether poverty has increased in the last thirty years has
dramatically different answers with contrasting measures of poverty.1 Despite the very
real consequences of poverty measurement, unfortunately these advances remain
incompletely realized.
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First, the statistic was remarkably impervious to most of the policies designed to
improve life among low income families that were implemented in the following
decades. The 1970s saw rapid growth in food stamp and housing benefits, in-kind
programs not measured in the resource definition. The last 30 years have also seen
large expansions in publicly paid medical care, another in-kind benefit. The 1980s saw
major reforms in the tax system that reduced tax burdens in low income families; in the
1990s, the expansion of the EITC increased transfers from the tax system. Tax
payments and tax refunds do not affect the poverty statistics.
A primary reason to want to measure economic need is to track the trends over time,
looking at the effects of economic change as well as policy change. The public dollars
that we put into anti-poverty programs have grown enormously since the mid-1960s. But
we have had an official poverty statistic that did not measure the impact of these
changes on the economic resources of the poor. While the poverty measure was
designed to measure cash income, most public assistance has come in the form of non-
cash transfers. The exception to this is the expansion of Social Security and
Supplemental Security Income to elderly low income families. The sharp decline in
11
poverty among the elderly, relative to other groups, largely reflects the fact that
expanded public support for the elderly took the form of cash transfers.
As a result, Ronald Reagan was able to declare in 1988, “My friends, some years ago
the Federal Government declared war on poverty and poverty won.”11 Looking at
Figure 2, this is a reasonable conclusion given stagnant poverty rates after the early
1970s. Although this was a period of rapid growth in public spending on the poor, its
effects were invisible since we had no official statistic that reflected how this public
spending improved the resources or the lives of low income families. In a very
fundamental way, our poverty statistics failed us and made it easy to claim that public
spending on the poor had little effect. Indeed, the primary statistical measure which we
used to evaluate economic need could not possibly have measured the impact of these
effects. For policy analysts, this should provide a jarring and memorable lesson in the
importance of good statistics to the public debate and to public understanding of the
impact of policy changes. Even in the 1990s, when a strong economy led to
substantially reduced poverty rates, the reductions would have been even larger if
expanded post-tax EITC subsidies were counted as income.
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Furthermore, because the poverty definition became more and more irrelevant as a way to evaluate
economic need, this opened up a statistical vacuum, making it possible for a wide variety of groups to
make counter-claims about levels and trends in economic need. While a common approach among those
with a particular agenda is to calculate an ‘improved statistic’, this has been particularly noticeably in the
public debate over poverty. On the one hand, Robert Rector (1999) has argued that poverty should be
based on material hardship and claims that in 1992 only 9.8 percent of single parent families should be
counted as disadvantaged. In contrast, Trudi Renwick and Barbara Bergmann (1993)
developed a poverty threshold by building a ‘Basic Needs Budget’ for low income single-
parent families, emphasizing the amounts needed for adequate child care. In their
estimates, poverty rates among single parents should be 47 percent.
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In 1990, the Joint Economic Committee held hearings on poverty measurement; at the
same time the Council of Economic Advisers, under President George Bush (the elder),
proposed a statistical improvement initiative which included improvements in poverty. 13
The discussion created by these initiatives led Congress to appropriate money for the
National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to appoint a panel to make recommendations for
improving the measurement of poverty. The resulting NAS report presented a template
for poverty measurement changes (Citro and Michael, 1995.)
The NAS report recommended an approach that was conceptually consistent with Orshansky’s efforts,
but which addressed many of the problems with the 1964 definition. The committee recommended basing
the threshold on expenditures on necessities (defined as expenditures on food, housing, and clothing),
‘plus a little more’ (a multiplier of 1.10 to 1.15). A specified point below the median of the distribution of
aggregate expenditures on necessities was chosen as the basis for this threshold. The committee
recommended basing the resource definition on after-tax cash income, plus the imputed value of near-
cash in-kind benefits, minus an adjustment for work expenses (transportation and child care expenses),
minus an adjustment for out-of-pocket medical expenses. The committee also emphasized the
importance of updating the threshold calculation regularly. This would lead to a quasi-relative poverty
threshold. Expenditures on necessities increase when income grows, but more slowly than overall income
growth. The committee suggested that the elasticity of expenditures on necessities to total income was
between 0.65 and 0.80 (Citro and Michael, 1995, p144).
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BRADY COUNTERDEFINITION
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Second, Sen has pioneered the concept of capability deprivation.33 Capability refers to
the ability to function effectively in society and have the freedoms to participate fully and
equally with the mainstream of society. The concept of capability also emerges from
Rawls’ political philosophy.34 Rawls contended that basic liberties should be prioritized
in a society. A society that deprives people of basic liberties can be understood as
depriving those people of 10 capability. Sen has formulated his definition of poverty in
terms of the poor’s lack of substantive freedom of choice to achieve valuable
functionings and well-being. A functioning member of society must have basic freedoms
(or capabilities) to participate in society.35 As Rainwater and Smeeding explain,
“Without a requisite level of goods and services, individuals cannot act and participate
as full members of their society.”36 In many ways, capability deprivation and social
exclusion share common ground. If one is socially excluded, that person has a limited
capability to effectively participate in society. Atkinson links social exclusion and
capability deprivation by explaining that poverty involves, “people being prevented from
participation in the normal activities of the society in which they live or being incapable
of functioning.”37 Similar to social exclusion, one can think of the poor as “capability
deprived” since they lack the basic liberties to participate equally in society.38 Thus, the
concepts social exclusion and capability present an engaging, broadening direction for
analysts of social inequality.
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CULTURAL AND ECONOMIC MEASURES INTERSECT – THE BRADY DEFINITION ACCOUNTS FOR
MATERIAL DEPRIVATION
BRADY 7
http://www.duke.edu/~elb13/Papers/Brady_Roundtable.pdf
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Duke University
Chapter 2 of Politicizing Poverty, Socializing Equality (manuscript in progress)
Because poverty is primarily an economic status and social exclusion and capability
deprivation are multifaceted and complex, some readers might see them as
incompatible. It might strike some as inappropriate to treat social exclusion and
capability deprivation as market phenomena, rather than cultural, institutional or social
concepts. However, the economic market is one of several main mechanisms triggering
social exclusion and capability deprivation. In rich Western democracies, a low level of
economic resources is a principal precursor to social exclusion and capability
deprivation. Barry has argued that an interest in social exclusion demands an interest in
economic inequality, and “A government professing itself concerned with social
exclusion but indifferent to inequality is, to put it charitably, suffering from a certain
amount of confusion.”39 Cantillion claims, “There is probably not a single characteristic
that the 11 ‘socially excluded’ have in common, except perhaps, not having a stable
well-paying job.”40 Atkinson exemplifies social exclusion as lacking a telephone in the
home: “A person unable to afford a telephone finds it difficult to participate in a society
where the majority have telephones.”41 While owning a telephone or lacking a job clearly
reflects a person’s market standing, these simple conditions also suggest complex
social processes of dislocation and marginalization. Even conceiving of poverty with the
nuanced notions of capability deprivation and social exclusion, a minimal level of
economic resources remains essential. In order to participate in society and take part in
community life, it is essential to have a sufficient income.42 Thus, social exclusion and
capability deprivation involve marginalization in society’s institutions and, especially the
market.
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Relative Versus Absolute Poverty Measures For many years, a vigorous debate
persisted over relative versus absolute definitions of poverty.43 Each taps into
contrasting notions of difference and deprivation.44 Also, absolute and relative standards
produce different policy implications and accounts of the experience of poverty, and
somewhat differ in the estimation of the extent of poverty. Despite this historical debate,
poverty scholars increasingly conclude that in affluent democracies, a relative definition
is more appropriate.45 Alternatively, absolute measures of “basic needs” are most useful
in less developed countries. By reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of absolute
and relative measures, I advocate for a relative measure.
CONTEXT DEMANDS A RELATIVE MEASURE THAT TAKES CULTURE AND SOCIETY INTO
ACCOUNT
BRADY 7
http://www.duke.edu/~elb13/Papers/Brady_Roundtable.pdf
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Duke University
Chapter 2 of Politicizing Poverty, Socializing Equality (manuscript in progress)
ANY MEASURE HAS TO CHANGE TO ACCOUNT FOR OVERALL RISE IN LIVING STANDARDS
BLANK 7
http://www.npc.umich.edu/publications/u/working_paper07-30.pdf
Rebecca Blank, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan and
Brookings Institution
“How to Improve Poverty Measurement in the United States”
National Poverty Center Working Paper Series #07-30, November 2007
This paper was prepared as the Presidential Address to the Association for Public Policy
Analysis and Management at their annual conference, November 8-10, 2007.
If the thresholds had been recalculated or rebenchmarked at any point since 1963,
changes in methodology would surely have occurred. Without recalculation, if an
appropriate price index is used, the poverty line would be at the same absolute level as
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in 1963. This raises the question of whether an absolute poverty line makes sense. As
incomes grow or as behavioral expectations change, the things required to fully
participate in society change.9 For this reason, many argue that at least partial
adjustment for changing living standards should occur in the poverty thresholds.
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