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Poverty spending and the poverty gap

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  • Daniel H. Weinberg

Abstract

This paper examines two questions basic to welfare policy: (1) whether the amount of poverty-related transfers is sufficient to fill the poverty gap, and (2) which families actually get benefits and how much of their income deficit is filled by those benefits. Transfers are sufficient: the post-Social Security poverty gap is $74 billion while poverty-related programs total $198 billion. Further, 86% of current income-conditioned benefits go to the pretransfer poor and 89% of those are used to alleviate poverty (fill the poverty gap). Thus, if a substantial fraction of total Federal and State expenditures on poverty-related programs could be targeted more toward the poor, the poverty gap can be eliminated. The current programs, however, would have to be changed substantially to achieve the necessary retargeting.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel H. Weinberg, 1987. "Poverty spending and the poverty gap," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 6(2), pages 230-241.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jpamgt:v:6:y:1987:i:2:p:230-241
    DOI: 10.2307/3324518
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    Cited by:

    1. Sung-Geun Kim, 2016. "What Have We Called as “Poverty”? A Multidimensional and Longitudinal Perspective," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 129(1), pages 229-276, October.
    2. Cox, Donald & Jakubson, George, 1995. "The connection between public transfers and private interfamily transfers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 129-167, May.
    3. Marchand, J. & Smeeding, T., 2016. "Poverty and Aging," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 905-950, Elsevier.
      • Marchand, Joseph & Smeeding, Timothy, 2016. "Poverty and Aging," Working Papers 2016-11, University of Alberta, Department of Economics, revised 20 Nov 2016.
    4. Pat Doyle & Esther Miller & Jim Sears, "undated". "Program Participation Patterns Among Persons with Disabilities," Mathematica Policy Research Reports e462da4910e24ac784f205a39, Mathematica Policy Research.

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