Talk:Poverty in the United States

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Poverty in the United States was a good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
July 31, 2006	Good article nominee	Not listed

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Wiki Education assignment: Introduction to Policy Analysis

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 March 2022 and 30 May 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): LoanKLe (article contribs).

Wiki Education assignment: Sustainable Futures

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 22 January 2024 and 10 May 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Roach619 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Roach619 (talk) 05:31, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education assignment: Global Poverty and Practice

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 16 January 2024 and 10 May 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Dangdiggity (article contribs). Peer reviewers: MayaLis1.

— Assignment last updated by MayaLis1 (talk) 18:33, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

can welfare cure poverty in US

The official poverty definition uses money income before taxes and does not include noncash benefits (such as public housing, Medicaid, and food stamps) That means if the government triples the amount of public housing, medicare and food stamps the Official Poverty Measure (OPM) poverty rate will not change at all. However the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) will go down. OPM answers the question "how much poverty is created by the private economy" but SPM answers "how well off are these people in terms of living standards." Rjensen (talk) 03:04, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You are somewhat correct; the OPM includes government cash transfers like SSI, and welfare. (This is mentioned in the lead). Do you have a suggestion on how to improve the article? Do you think that could be more clear? ---Avatar317 ^(talk) 20:18, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Poverty and homelessness

Re including this chart re homelessness in this article on poverty, see:

From the National Coalition for the Homeless (cited ten times in Homelessness in the United States): Why Do People Experience Homelessness? "Homelessness and poverty are inextricably linked."
From the NIH: Poverty, Homelessness, and Family Break-Up: "Poverty was also longstanding: 62.8% had experienced a prior episode of homelessness..."
In Connecticut state government through News 12: New poverty task force will address homelessness: "...poverty task force designed to address homelessness and other issues relating to poverty"
In New York through the Times Union: Number of homeless students grows across New York: "Poverty and homelessness remain a pervasive issue for students across New York"

@Avatar317: Even without these references that remove alleged WP:OR issues, it should be obvious that there is a relation between poverty and homelessness, even if there are causes for homelessness other than poverty. The claim—your claim—that this relation is a "commonly held myth" is unsubstantiated, against reliable references, and contrary to common sense. The chart should remain. Please re-insert. —RCraig09 (talk) 22:26, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is this: EPISODES of homelessness are experienced more by poor people than middle-class people, so yes, there is a RELATION to poverty. However, THESE CURRENT TRENDS (increases) in homelessness have nothing to do with poverty, it has to do with the increasing nationwide housing shortage.

From WP:SYNTH "Do not combine material from multiple sources to state or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." This graph and caption is implying a conclusion not supported by sources.

Note the difference between your graph of homelessness (with the steep recent increase) and the Census' Bureau's publication of a similar graph for both measures of poverty. [1] ---Avatar317 ^(talk) 23:26, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I can't seem to quickly find a graph of the homelessness RATE over time, but to my knowledge, that graph would be THE REVERSE of the Census poverty graph I linked, which shows a gradual downward trajectory for both measures of the poverty rate. ---Avatar317 ^(talk) 23:40, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There seem to be sources that make this connection (see Homelessness), though they aren't listed in the Poverty article..."Poverty is a significant factor in homelessness..."

Cheers. DN (talk) 01:04, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Those three sources are from Kenya and Canada, NOT the US, so not relevant here. ---Avatar317 ^(talk) 01:58, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Now that I looked at those sources, that whole section was WP:OR. I have removed it. ---Avatar317 ^(talk) 02:04, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I can perceive this being due in the section titled "Effects of Poverty". Cheers. DN (talk) 01:38, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]