It does not depend at all on people’s mandatory expenses remaining the same items, just that the inflation metric captures the increase in their expense overall.
Do you agree that the 3x food was roughly accurate in 1963? If you do, then it doesn’t matter at all how the number was calculated. Because we’re not re-doing the same calculation with modern numbers. We’re instead just increasing that number by the inflation rate.
I agree that some of those things have increased much faster than inflation, but some things have increased much slower than inflation, and necessarily so, or the inflation metric itself would be much higher. Like food. Food has gotten a lot cheaper, which cancels out some of the increase in housing prices. Inflation overall gives a much better assessment of the increase in the cost of living than the author gives it credit for. It’s certainly not perfect. It might be missing some overall rising costs by including the decline in prices for non-necessities. But that effect is much smaller than 5x that the author claims the metric is off by.
Edit: I’m not arguing that the poverty line calculation is good, or an accurate assessment of the minimum cost of living. I was just annoyed that the logic that the article was using to argue against it was flawed. (In addition to their use of incorrect quotes, averages instead of medians, etc. Averages in particular always is frustrating since income inequality is always also a big point people make, and that necessarily means that average cost of say rent or a home will be skewed high)
I get you’re saying that they adjust the 1963 cost for inflation. (vs tripling today’s cost of food) I can’t agree if that was enough in that time, because how would I know? But sure, let’s say it was. It doesn’t follow that adjusted for inflation it would be enough now.
As the author wrote, there seems to be significantly more inflation in other expenses than in food. Doing the math on what we think are reasonable expenses can show what a “real” poverty line is.
You’ve missed the point and doubled down on missing it. The 3x metric was right in 1963, but 3x food is still the same metric used to calculate the poverty line. Food has increased by inflation sure, but as the author says, food doesn’t account for 3x the household budget, instead of 33% it’s more like 7 percent. So the poverty line is way off.
The author then goes on to highlight issues with getting from the current poverty line which is mitigated by government subsidies, to that actual poverty line where you need to put in significant extra effort while seeing no actual gains until you reach it.
I think you’re making the same mistake.
It does not depend at all on people’s mandatory expenses remaining the same items, just that the inflation metric captures the increase in their expense overall.
Do you agree that the 3x food was roughly accurate in 1963? If you do, then it doesn’t matter at all how the number was calculated. Because we’re not re-doing the same calculation with modern numbers. We’re instead just increasing that number by the inflation rate.
I agree that some of those things have increased much faster than inflation, but some things have increased much slower than inflation, and necessarily so, or the inflation metric itself would be much higher. Like food. Food has gotten a lot cheaper, which cancels out some of the increase in housing prices. Inflation overall gives a much better assessment of the increase in the cost of living than the author gives it credit for. It’s certainly not perfect. It might be missing some overall rising costs by including the decline in prices for non-necessities. But that effect is much smaller than 5x that the author claims the metric is off by.
Edit: I’m not arguing that the poverty line calculation is good, or an accurate assessment of the minimum cost of living. I was just annoyed that the logic that the article was using to argue against it was flawed. (In addition to their use of incorrect quotes, averages instead of medians, etc. Averages in particular always is frustrating since income inequality is always also a big point people make, and that necessarily means that average cost of say rent or a home will be skewed high)
I get you’re saying that they adjust the 1963 cost for inflation. (vs tripling today’s cost of food) I can’t agree if that was enough in that time, because how would I know? But sure, let’s say it was. It doesn’t follow that adjusted for inflation it would be enough now.
As the author wrote, there seems to be significantly more inflation in other expenses than in food. Doing the math on what we think are reasonable expenses can show what a “real” poverty line is.
You’ve missed the point and doubled down on missing it. The 3x metric was right in 1963, but 3x food is still the same metric used to calculate the poverty line. Food has increased by inflation sure, but as the author says, food doesn’t account for 3x the household budget, instead of 33% it’s more like 7 percent. So the poverty line is way off.
The author then goes on to highlight issues with getting from the current poverty line which is mitigated by government subsidies, to that actual poverty line where you need to put in significant extra effort while seeing no actual gains until you reach it.