Talk:Welfare's effect on poverty

Neutrality dispute
I'm tagging the article with NPOV per the deletion discussion, as both sides of the effects of welfare need expansion, counterarguments and balancing. However, I'm hesitant to personally edit the article as I'm concerned my own views would cloud the article further and escalate this conflict. I will, however, be removing the quote by Roosevelt as I think that's fairly unencyclopedic to include without mention in the article, even if it's sourced.  elektrik SHOOS  04:53, 13 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I would say that, at the moment, the problem isn't so much one of neutrality, as one of basic sense. Currently the article contains exactly 5 sentences of info, a big table, a graph that isn't labeled (What country is that from?) and doesn't have a clear connection to the text, and some references. Most of the sentences don't use proper grammar; normally I'd go in and fix that, but at the moment I can't even tell what the author is trying to say.  At the moment, this article needs a lot of work just to be understandable, much less NPOV.  Qwyrxian (talk) 04:58, 13 July 2010 (UTC)


 * How about everyone spends a week writing the article instead of arguing about it? Once the article is written, then we'll know what there is to argue about. - Richard Cavell (talk) 05:04, 13 July 2010 (UTC)


 * WP:Don't call the kettle black. I don't see a single edit on this page by you other than a minor edit removing the Afd tag.  elektrik SHOOS  05:57, 13 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not arguing about it. My point is that right now, I don't even know what I should be editing. What's there makes so little sense that I can't even begin to add anything.  Without clarifications from the original writers, I don't even have a place to start.  Maybe User:CartoonDiablo can post here explaining what the basic concept is behind the article so that we can know where to start looking for sources, what kinds of information he was thinking of expressing, etc.  Obviously, his thoughts don't rule what belongs here, even as the original editor, but right now there's practically nothing to start from.  As just one example, at the moment, I don't understand what information is supposed to be here that doesn't belong on the Welfare page itself.  Qwyrxian (talk) 06:25, 13 July 2010 (UTC)


 * We should keep Afd in mind for that reason. If at some point in the future it is determined that not enough information can be gathered to merit an independent article it should be merged back to its parent. But let's give it a probationary period first to see how the article develops.  elektrik SHOOS  06:51, 13 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry for any grammatical issues, the idea is the debate over the actual effectiveness of welfare which merits it's own article. The topic might just be too narrow, we could change it to something like "welfare debate" similar to Social Security debate (United States) if this doesn't work out. CartoonDiablo (talk) 07:20, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Looking over the article now after not thinking about it for a while, it is terribly POV. The proponents side is a set of statistical data showing (assuming the numbers are correct) fairly unambiguous decreases in poverty. The opponents side is a summary of some opinions from think tanks. That's not a fair comparison at all--when one side has facts and numbers, and the other side has opinions, the first side inevitably (in western culture, anyway) "wins." Furthermore, the proponents side has too strong a reliance on primary data, rather than the analysis of that data by reliable, secondary sources. I think that the first thing that we should do is strip out the table; then we need to replace it with summaries of secondary sources. While I'd personally rather that the proponent's side "win," that doesn't make for a very good wikipedia article. I'll wait for some comments before I go and rip out the table, and I do have to say that I have neither the access nor inclination to find other info to replace it with. Qwyrxian (talk) 00:12, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Ya I agree that this has a huge slant especially considering those think tanks such as Cato actually provide facts and figures and none of their arguments are presented. Additionally the Cato journal is peer-reviewed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sabaton10 (talk • contribs) 07:31, 18 September 2010 (UTC)


 * That makes no sense. "One side relies too much on data and the other too much on opinion. Let's remove the data and then it'll be even." The table is sourced, as are the studies, and I don't see any blatant synthesis or primary opinion which needs sourcing. As I stated below, the table needs a description, yes, but I don't see any reason to remove it entirely.  elektrik SHOOS  00:21, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Grievous errors in their methodology and conclusions
The sections “Table of welfare effect on poverty reduction” and “Table of poverty levels pre and post welfare” are extremely misleading. Here’s why:

Poverty is defined as the “…general scarcity or dearth, or the state of one who lacks a certain amount of material possessions or money.” (quoted from the opening line of the Wikipedia page on poverty). However these sections use a definition of “relative poverty”, which is in fact “economic inequality” (again quoted from the page on poverty), here specifically “defined by 40% of US median income” (quoted from the page in question).

It is first and foremost misleading to equate these terms, but it gets even worse:

1) In the United States, median income includes money received by welfare (http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/comm_planning/affordablehousing/training/web/calculator/definitions/census). To say that “welfare reduces poverty” is therefore necessarily true, because they have conveniently defined poverty as “income equality”, and only those with low income qualify for welfare. Receiving welfare then, by their misleading definitions, MUST reduce poverty.

2) Their definition of absolute poverty is based on Kenworth (1998), but is only absolute in the sense that it normalizes incomes from several different nations. In fact it is again highly relative (ie. based on income) but is even more flawed because it looks at income after taxes. Progressive income taxes, which all of the countries in these tables use, by definition generate income equality. Thus this measure is doubly flawed: Higher incomes are reported for the poor, who receive welfare and pay fewer or no taxes, while the after-tax income of the rich is decreased, and the result of both is that the distribution of incomes becomes considerably narrowed and unskewed. It is therefore completely unsurprising that by this calculation fewer people should fall below the 40% median income mark: Again, they have drawn the self-evident conclusion that progressive taxation and redistribution by welfare reduces income inequality. Their contribution has in reality been to falsely, or at least controversially, equate the concepts of “poverty” and “income equality.”

In short, they have committed a logical error called “petitio principii,” or “begging the question:” They have embedded the conclusion of their argument in its premises such that theirs is the only conclusion possible. In reality, these data do not concern “poverty” in any conventional understanding of the word. These are data on income (in)equality and they do not belong on this page. This article ought really to concern the conventional definition of poverty, namely the access to food, shelter or other basic amenities.

I recommend one of two things:

1) Move these data to a page called “the effect of welfare on income distribution”…in which they may discuss the evidence for the necessary and banal conclusion that income redistribution by welfare payments to the poor and taxation of the rich decreases income inequality

or

2) Remove these sections entirely on the grounds of poor methodology.

To equate income equality with poverty is necessarily political, and I therefore echo the concerns above regarding the neutrality of this article.

Cabelzil (talk) 21:35, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Issues with the table
I have an issue with the prewelfare/postwelfare table. None of the information in it is referenced and there's no indication of any important study details for that information either (such as the length of time between measurements, the specific welfare methods used to help reduce poverty, et cetera.) As much as I would love a vindication of my personal viewpoints on Wikipedia, my obligations to objectivity and verifiability compel me to at least raise my concerns about it here. The table can (and should} remain if it can be properly sourced. Otherwise, it should go.  elektrik SHOOS  07:02, 13 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Isn't it sourced in the column titles? The Absolute Poverty Rate column has a link to the Kenworthy article, and the Relative rate has a link to the Bradley, et al, article.  As for the details, if the sources are reliable, do we really need to include that info?  I'm more interested in seeing some sort of explanation of what that table is supposed to mean (based on info from the sources). —Preceding unsigned comment added by  Qwyrxian  (talk • contribs)  07:20, July 13, 2010 (UTC)


 * I didn't notice those sources at first. I guess the bigger issue is a lack of explanation for the table. As of right now, it's just sort of there without much background. The information in it is nearly completely unexplained. I added a brief sentence before the table but it was based on what I immediately saw in the table (and thus is kind of redundant). Also, as a minor issue, its sorting is broken and I don't know how to fix it.  elektrik SHOOS  16:30, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Correlation does not prove causation. Is it just me, or is pretty easy to understand that the causation this table implies is false because the standard of living has improved for all of mankind via modern technology and industrialization? This chart is comparing old world economies to modern economies and making a false causal link, it's comparing apples with oranges. Even people from many of the poorest countries today would be considered wealthy by living standards of the upper & middle class of last century before we had indoor plumbing, electricity, cars, planes, etc.

A valid and logical comparison would be to look at the wealth delta of like with like, the differential between two countries of similar starting points and dates following polar welfare policies and measuring the differences between the two. For example, after the Korean War split the country in two, both halves started from basically the same point of dire poverty. North Korea pursued a welfare policy to the extreme, completely socialist, promising that every citizen had the right to a free house, medicine, food, clothing, education, a good job, etc. The South Korea went the opposite route, and had less welfare than even the capitalist USA. This is comparing like with like, apples to apples, obviously South Korea has fared far better, and it's clear even their poor are far better off then the average North Korean in spite of their not being provided with free housing, medicine, higher education, etc. meanwhile North Koreans constantly have famines, starvation has killed millions of their citizens and like all communists they have chronic shortages and rationing of even basic services and goods. The typical socialist response is that this example isn't their ideal form of ruling socialism, neither was the USSR, Cuba, etc. nevermind that all attempts to fully socialize a nation have been met with economic disaster, and that countries with the greatest economic freedom / Laissez-faire (free from gov't control) are the wealthiest, and their poor benefit in tandem. I'd much rather be a lower class Singaporean than an upper class Cuban citizen, in spite of Cubans having complete welfare and Singapore having so little welfare that they just passed their first ever minium wage law recently, and remember in the 1960's Singapore was a dirt poor country and Cuba was the 3rd wealthiest in the hemisphere, how the tables have turn through a full socialist wealth redistribution. The relatively recent Zimbabwe crisis is another good historic example of what wealth redistribution does to an economy... socialists transformed the bread basket of Africa into a country with massive food shortages.Jadon (talk) 20:04, 29 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Even a cursory reading would show that the absolute poverty rate (Kentworthy et al.) table is adjusted for economic performance and your comments on Korea suggest a middle school level understanding of Korean history since South Korea was also a dictatorship until the 80s. CartoonDiablo (talk) 21:34, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

I saw the "adjustments" for economic growth, it's a completely bogus theoretical. Try comparing real-world unadjusted data, which you just did with North and South Korea, that's all I'm saying. Thank you for the graph... you're very good at cranking those out. Still it proves my point, North Korea has flat-lined while South Korea has done phenomenal. Also, most important, don't confuse political freedom with economic freedom, these two are mutually exclusive. A dictatorship can have zero welfare, zero socialism or completely welfare, 100% socialism. For example, it's arguable that parts of today's communist China is more Laissez-faire than even the USA across several sectors of their economy, in spite of their gov't name-sake over the last several decades they've become less socialized whie the USA is becoming more socialized, yet their growth in GDP in amazing. China's standard of living is doubling nearly every four years in spite of their trend for less wealth distrubtion. This is the exact opposite of the implication your Kenthworthy study is claiming. I'll dig up some studies of my own from Milton Friedman, Mises, Rothbard... perhaps makes some shinny graphs of my own when I get back from vacation.

In the meantime here's a better North vs South Korean graph for you: http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/06/north-korean-economic-history.html Jadon (talk) 21:50, 29 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Korea flat-lined because of things like floods and as you might notice, the outgrowing of the South's economy wasn't an accident, it was projected to outgrow the South for decades if it wasn't for the disasters (until the 80s when Kim Jong-Il took over and devastated the economy). That aside, there's a big difference between welfare and a socialized economy especially (even mentioned in the article) since socialists are against the use of welfare and your argument would imply that the countries with the biggest poverty reductions (Sweden, France etc.) also had the freest economies during the time period. CartoonDiablo (talk) 22:21, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Separating the article into pro vs. con
The article is divided into two primary sections: proponents vs. opponents. This is a trite and oversimplified way to divide the article. People often divide themselves up into groups based on their opinions, but that does not mean the Wikipedia article should fall into the same trap. These kinds of major policy issues are more nuanced, and each angle of each component should be explained in all its glory in topical article sections. I haven't done the necessary literature review to draw up proper sections yet, but I imagine as an example, you'd have a section for welfare in the developed world, welfare in developing countries, the theoretical underpinnings of welfare, etc. Such a treatment would allow for more nuance than the binary pro vs. con dividing line. Thoughts? Harej (talk) 07:08, 28 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm absolutely for all of that, it's just that most of the research on welfare's effect on poverty seems to amount to a trite, US-centric debate.
 * From what I can tell, development literature especially on developing nations seems to only mention welfare's effect on poverty in passing meaning it would require help from the WikiProject International Development among other places. CartoonDiablo (talk) 01:56, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Least effective in the US
A statement in the current revision is confusing: "The results of both studies show that poverty has been significantly reduced during the periods where major welfare programs were created, which is most effective on lowering poverty rate in France and the least effective overall within the United States." Reading the table based on those studies, that's not the impression I get. The table shows that the absolute poverty rate declined to a greater degree in the US than the United Kingdom, for example--so how can the programs have been the least effective in the US? The US isn't left with the highest poverty rate post-welfare either. Either the quoted statement is wrong, or some extra text needs to be added to explain the discrepancy. Knight of Truth (talk) 12:08, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure who put that there but I removed it and added it into the prior paragraph. CartoonDiablo (talk) 19:09, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

What in the World!!!
How in the world isn't this Article POV. This article is completely bias...... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.203.36.3 (talk) 08:55, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Care to elaborate? CartoonDiablo (talk) 09:31, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Gender Welfare and Poverty
— Assignment last updated by Shakaigaku Obasan (talk) 00:13, 19 October 2023 (UTC)