Poverty and politics often make strange bedfellows. Poverty is often a central issue to many highly contested election campaigns yet the implementation of a viable reduction strategy is often hard to come by.
It seems as though Ontario is not alone in developing poverty indicators this year. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently unveiled a new measure for gauging poverty measures in the city. The previous indicator calculated poverty levels by tripling the amount of money that an average family spent on groceries each year. The new measure attempts to be more comprehensive by including factors such as housing and child care expenses.
While I hardly believe that New York should continue to employ a poverty measure created with regard to the economic climate of the 1960’s, I am weary of using a more praising adjective for the newly developed plan as its application has already produced some peculiar results. In her recent New York Times article, Cara Butler noted that the new model ‘shows shifts in poverty in the city’s boroughs’. She characterizes Brooklyn and Queens as being ‘less poor’ than what is recorded in federal records.
By simply applying a new measure, New York’s most populous regions (combined population of approximately 4.7 million) are now less poor, in an instant.
I would be remiss, however, by failing to note the fact that Bloomberg’s new model factors in costs of living and social assistance. This has led the mayor to set the poverty threshold for New York at $26,138 for a family of four as opposed to the federal threshold of $20,444. With this new calculation Bloomberg purports that the poverty levels in New York are closer to 23% (as opposed to 19% calculated using the previous measure).
On its face, Bloomberg’s plan isn’t bad. In fact, a model that resists the often used ‘one-size fits all’ approach is refreshing indeed. What continues to nag me, however, is the ease in which statistics can be skewed and hard facts changed, all by applying a different standard of measurement.
Interestingly enough, Douglas J. Besharov, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute suggests that the measure works to artificially inflate the poverty levels of the city to keep ‘a lame-duck mayor in the public eye’. Enter here: the politics of poverty. While I wouldn’t extend my reasoning quite as far as Besharov, I must admit, he does present an interesting perspective.
One must question how prudent it is to accept a new poverty plan before considering the motives of the man behind it.
With his personal fortune estimated at a conservative $11.5 billion, Bloomberg’s media empire is the leading global provider of financial data. He retains 68% ownership of the company and has no plans on selling.
In 2006 Bloomberg announced a new annual commitment of $150 million to tackle poverty in the city. He created the Centre for Economic Opportunity to oversee spending and implement poverty reduction programs.
Oh, he also spent $42 million on his campaign; for mayor. According to his 2007 tax return released to the media on Friday, he lent $500,000 to an undisclosed golf club and has begun to rake in profits on commercial real estate on Madison Avenue. A perfect anti-poverty poster boy indeed.
Photo By: Edward Reed
After winning his election, Bloomberg set a five-year target to slash homelessness by two-thirds, however his measure for gauging poverty was unveiled only this July, more than four years after launching his ‘offensive against homelessness’. After pouring $710 million dollars into poverty prevention programs, the number of homeless families in New York has barely dropped.
Bloomberg should be applauded for recognizing that the federally established poverty line simply doesn’t work for a city like New York and the cost of living is keeping many residents below the poverty line. He has been widely criticized, however, for extinguishing New York’s middle class by doing nothing about it.
This course of action makes it apparent that the development of poverty indicators is no prerequisite to haphazard government spending. An analogous case can be found in Ontario itself – with the Ontario government funding the Ontario Child Benefit before settling on clear indicators and targets for poverty reduction.
Perhaps the bigger distortions can be attributed to the media outlets that continue to call attention to poverty issues but stop short of asking for change. For example, in January, the New York Times published a praising endorsement of Bloomberg’s under-publicized war on poverty while in the same article citing New York as leading the nation in income disparity. Recent articles have, at best, glossed over Bloomberg’s inability to tackle homelessness and to redirect more funding to the working poor.
Instead, the media has placed more emphasis on his rise on the Forbe’s Richest American List and his inclusion in this year’s Time 100.
The American media aligning their interests with a fellow media mogul is far from surprising. While this is no revelation, I do wonder about the lack of accountability the public has come to accept from major news sources.
Upon a cursory review of his professional and political history, it is apparent that Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s personal interests are inextricably linked to New York’s economy. Reconciling his wealth and business interests with his mandate to reduce poverty is no small order; however, it’s necessary to give substance to a poverty proposal of this kind.
The notion of transparency in politics may be too idealistic for our time. The notion of transparency in the media, however, may be too idealistic all together.
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