Children who are hungry...
...extreme poverty in this country
Is a challenge to the conscience of our nation
Really talk about what’s happening in America, and that is poverty
Americans have long been aware...
...of the country’s poverty problem
About one out of every six people that you pass...
...could be living in poverty
Almost half of the people in the United States living in poverty
But the nature of the problem, and even the scale of it...
...seems far from clear
I produce documentary films here at The Economist...
...and I want to get to grips with...
...the story behind American poverty
55 years ago they declared this war on poverty...
...and they haven’t solved it
If you earn less than about $24,000
— If the household
As a household, yes...
...you are considered to be in poverty, but...
...the way that poverty is officially calculated in America...
...is really flawed
It’s now children who are most affected by it
You know, kids are born into poverty...
...then they find it very hard to escape poverty
And if there are more children born into poverty...
...then you’re not going to be able to fix that
Where do we go—next steps?
So I think our first port of call would be...
...speaking to Idrees who’s the author of the special report
Idrees Kahloon is The Economist’s US policy correspondent
Over the past few months he’s travelled all over America...
...learning about the current state of poverty in the country...
...and putting together our most detailed-ever reporting on the topic
Hello
No, no, hey how’s it going?
Hey, good
What was the most striking thing...
...when you were sort of putting the report together?
It’s kind of a weird thing like you live in your rabbit hole for so long...
...that you feel like you’ve only scratched the surface
I was shocked that you still see a share of the population...
...that is just like really, really deprived
It’s different from the way...
...that I think we conventionally think of poverty
I think today we think of it as an inner-city...
...largely black phenomenon...
...and like that’s just not, just not the case
That’s certainly still in cities, pockets of it exists...
...but I didn’t know that for poor kids for example...
...the life chances change remarkably...
...depending on what kind of neighbourhood you grow up in
So the sort of overall message is that...
...absolute poverty has declined since the Sixties...
...but poverty is still getting worse for some areas
It’s getting worse because it’s becoming a lot more concentrated...
...and that has pretty negative consequences for poor people...
...especially children
This is the official measure of poverty in America
In 2019 if the income of a family of four...
...slips below $25,750...
...the government considers them to be poor
That seems clear enough
But it only tells part of the story
Here’s the problem with this figure...
...it’s based on a 55-year-old analysis of 63-year-old data
In 1963 a government statistician calculated that...
...the average family would spend a third...
...of their household budget on food
But today only an eighth of household income is spent on food
Instead, child care and housing are the biggest costs
But the poverty line takes neither of these into account
It’s also the same wherever people live in America...
...which assumes that living costs are the same everywhere
And they’re not
And then there’s this...
...compared to some other developed countries...
...America’s poverty line seems surprisingly low
In Britain families are classified as poor...
...if they earn less than 60% of the national median...
...the mid-point for household incomes for the entire population
In America, the line equates to just 26%...
...another clue that the real story is not this simple
It’s currently 6am and I am at Heathrow Airport...
...about to board a flight to Chicago
Idrees’s report is very detailed...
...full of lots of stats and graphs and data...
...but I think the real way we’re going to be able to find out...
...what the situation in poverty is in America at the moment...
...is if we go there
We’re going to put Idrees’s special report...
...and other research materials on our website...
...just click on the info-card at the top right...
...of your screen to take a look
We are currently on our way to...
...what’s it called, Wakeegan?
We currently on our way to Wakeegan...
...which is a suburb north of Chicago. It’s in Lake County
We were headed there to learn more about a charity...
...that provides support for struggling families
Take this piece of paper to the next table
They’ll get you a pink bag and they’ll get your diapers
And to meet with a few of the families that the charity helps out
Lydia is a mum of two teenage kids...
...and one-year-old Raya
Look at all these people in your room you can play with
Like others we met in this neighbourhood...
...Lydia doesn’t have a regular job
Child care here costs more than the wages she can earn
What does your partner do?
He is a general manager for a fast-food chain
He just got promoted
And so you said that things can be a bit strapped sometimes
What would you mean by that?
You know we’re all just so behind...
...and playing catch up is just really hard
We do end up going to like a food pantry
So our monthly income, he gets paid every week...
...so two of those weeks we have to save for rent
Those other two are going to bills
My husband has to have his phone for work...
...so we have to pay for the phones
We don’t have a landline
And we have to have internet because my kids...
...have either a laptop for school or like an iPad for school
They don’t use books anymore...
...so they need to have internet to do their homework
You know we want to do everything right
It’s just really difficult
It’s interesting because I think the perception of what poverty is...
...is actually quite different from the reality
You can be poor but you can still have two cars...
...you can still have a TV. You can have a washing machine, a dishwasher
You wouldn’t look at the neighbourhood and think...
...this is a really poor neighbourhood
And you can see that desire for the kids...
...to do well and to be educated and to go on and be able to...
...live in a slightly different life
But as we know from our research...
...that’s hard and if you live in a poor neighbourhood...
...it’s quite hard to break out of that cycle of poverty
Hi Lauren
Oh, we can’t hear you
There we go
Lauren Jones is an economist...
...who studies how social policy affects children...
...and low-income families
It seems to me that the people for whom...
...it’s not necessarily getting worse but it’s sort of teetering on the edge...
...are the people who earn above...
...what the federal poverty line is...
...$30,000-40,000 because their chances of slipping in a much higher
Yes I think that’s probably true...
...the stagnation of income growth...
...has really affected those people
Combined with the fact that there really is no social support...
...for people who are kind of in that working-poor range
There’s this kind of group of earners...
...who are earning more than like $30,000 or $40,000 a year
It’s not a lot of money especially in some of the big cities
Child care affordability is a major issue that needs to be addressed
Other rich countries have implemented child-benefit programmes...
...that have helped to reduce poverty
These offer cash payments to all families with children...
...with higher benefits for poorer families
But could that happen in America?
We went to talk to John Prideaux, The Economist’s US editor
In the report Idrees suggests that a universal child benefit...
...would be the most successful way of getting children out of poverty
I was struck by how inexpensive it was actually
And if you’re looking to spend money...
...on improving the lot of poor people...
...you are far better off doing that than say...
...subsidising people to attend college, or a lot of the other things...
...that people talk about a good deal more
Yeah
So my feeling is we ought to be led by the evidence...
...and if the evidence is it’s not that expensive...
...and it has a massive effect...
...that sounds pretty persuasive to me
It’s not very American though is it?
No you’re right it’s not
But in some sense universal benefits are easier...
...to sell electorally because everyone gets them
Whereas if you’re saying...
...OK this benefit only goes to this group of people here...
...that tends to be a much harder sell
Which Americans really don’t like
Yeah that tends to be pretty unpopular...
...in the sense of like what’s this group getting special treatment?
Why should they get it?
Why shouldn’t I?
So I think universal ones can be...
...can be a kind of easier sell in some sense
Right now though America still faces major challenges...
...in tackling the changing face of poverty
We’ve made another film that explains more...
...about those challenges...
...and why organisations like this diaper-handout charity are still vital
Morning
Do you have your ID?
We’ve had clients come to us that have said...
...I’ve rinsed out a diaper and I’ve reused it...
...I’ve turned a diaper inside out and I’ve reused it
Sometimes I’ve left my child in a diaper...
...for far longer than I should have
You can find out more about the diaper project...
...and watch the rest of that film by clicking on the link opposite
The other link will take you to some of the resources...
...we used when we were making this film...
...including the special report on poverty in America
Thanks for watching