The poor will always be with us. That's what one of the most influential religious figures in history said two millenia ago--although to be fair, the statement was addressing a very different place, time, and situation. But the poor are still with us, and have been ever since in most societies and cultures. In economics, they measure and analyze the damaging social effects and costly burdens of poverty, and the persistent levels of chronic unemployment, the attendant condition that both leads to poverty and holds the poor captive there, often for generations.
Over the course of the 20th century, most advanced and accountable societies have provided assistance programs for the poor to a greater or lesser extent. And in most cases, it is measured and provided for in terms of money--periodic welfare payments, or "transfer payments" from the government. And in the U.S., those payments are supported to some extent by complementary programs such as food stamps, subsidized federal housing, and medicaid. But it is often not enough as many continue to live without an adequate diet, adequate housing, education or healthcare. And the victims are too often the children, a next generation without the basics needed to lift themselves to gainful employment, to lift themselves out of the cycle of poverty.
But how do we define and measure poverty? And is our approach to its measurement part of the failure that extends to inadequate solutions? Does income in and of itself--money--provide the best measure of the needy's needs, and the best understanding of how to address them? That issue is now being addressed by two of the most authoritative and influential researchers and thinkers in the field. From the Chronicle of Higher Education:
At the forefront of this change in thinking are two economists, James E. Foster, a professor of economics and international affairs at George Washington University, and Sabina Alkire, director of the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative, at the University of Oxford. A paper they wrote in 2007 may help redefine what it means to be poor. Mexico has adopted the method outlined in the paper as its official poverty measure. Bhutan is using it to create a national happiness index. Other countries, like Chile, have indicated interest, as have officials of the World Bank, who are considering where else the approach might work.
Among researchers in the field, Mr. Foster was already well known. A paper he co-wrote in the 1980s included a method for calculating income-based poverty that is now the standard in many countries and is cited in nearly every paper on international poverty. A mathematician at heart, Mr. Foster took an economics course as an undergraduate at New College of Florida and found his calling. Here, he decided, was a way for him to apply his math skills to the real world. [He and] economist Amartya Sen, who is now a professor at Harvard University [and] won a Nobel in economic science in 1998, wrote a book together called On Economic Inequality (Oxford, 1997).
That book contains a chapter on multidimensional poverty, a concept that Mr. Sen is known for having pioneered. But while Mr. Foster agreed that, in theory, poverty was about more than income, he was dubious about actually trying to measure those other factors...A conversation with Ms. Alkire changed his mind. While he was in Britain to give a talk, she buttonholed him, arguing that his formula for measuring chronic poverty could, with appropriate tweaks, translate to multidimensional poverty. "He was suspicious," Ms. Alkire says, "but we talked it through." Mr. Foster was finally persuaded.
The method that they developed allows researchers to create categories deemed important to well-being, like access to health care, education, food, and so on. Income can be included, too, as one factor among several. Researchers can decide how many categories must be deficient to make a person poor, and can also weight certain categories as more important than others. They might, for instance, decide that food matters more than education.
--"The Actual Needs of the Needy: New Measure of Poverty Cathes On," by Tom Bartlett, The Chronicle of Higher Education (3.7.10).
But what does that mean in terms of how it could help us better understand poverty and address it? And with the U.S.' long history of using income to measure poverty--and falling short of adequately addressing it--what are the chances that this new approach might be adopted here? More from the same article:
For starters, says Mr. Foster, you get a fuller, more accurate picture of who needs help and what kind of help they need. People in a rural area might need better transportation in order to make it to a market. Providing better transportation does not necessarily raise anyone's income, but it might substantially improve their quality of life. Having a way to measure improvement in areas other than income allows a government to demonstrate how it is helping its citizens, or a critic to show how it's failing to help them. What's more, looking at just income can be misleading. In India incomes have recently risen, but so has malnutrition. If people are hungry, aren't they still living in poverty?
That's why Mexico has adopted the new method. A 2004 law requires the government to use a multidimensional measure of poverty in official estimates. After looking at a number of proposals, Mexico chose the method devised by Mr. Foster and Ms. Alkire. The multidimensional approach, he says, allows for "a better idea of the type of poverty people are suffering and the reasons for this type of poverty." Data from 2008 have been analyzed using the method and, Mr. Licona says, some changes are already under way. For example, a program called Oportunidades, which gives grants to poor families, will now take into account schooling and nutrition when identifying families in need.
Bhutan's embrace of the formula has a twist. Instead of measuring poverty, the country is using it to assess national happiness in nine areas, including living standards and psychological well-being. Adaptability is part of the method's appeal: Mr. Foster and Ms. Alkire don't dictate categories or cutoffs. Instead they provide mathematical tools for making an evaluation...What the two scholars have created is "a method to actually operationalize these ideas that otherwise seem appealing but are very difficult to put into practice."
The United States has been using the same income-based measure for decades, though the Obama administration announced just last week that it would start taking into account a broader set of information, like how much a family spends on child care and housing. That's still a long way from what Mr. Foster and Ms. Alkire propose, but it will provide more data on how poor people spend money. And perhaps if the multidimensional poverty measure is a success in Mexico, then other countries, maybe even the United States, will follow suit.
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Actual-Needs-of-the-Needy-/64526/
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