Poor Getting Richer?
“… as
long as the Schumpeterian horse of innovation and the Smithian horse of
the gains from trade outrun the Government horse of stupidity, the
winners will continue to be you, me and our children and grandchildren,
even if the stupid horse is running a bit faster than it used to.”
Steve Horowitz
It is
difficult to determine which horse is running faster at this time. I
would guess that it is the government horse. Steve Horowitz describes
which horses ran faster in the past and the beneficial effects of that
on the poor:
The Economic Condition of Poor Americans (and the rest of us) Continues to Improve
Steven HorwitzAs
many of you know, this is a set of data I’ve followed closely over the
years (as has Don Boudreaux among others). The Census Bureau just
released the 2005 data on what households have (HT: Ariel Goldring)
and it has allowed me to update my data. In addition, I’ve also
rendered the data more consistent. Each column on the poor below
reflects households below the poverty line. In previous iterations I
had said it was the “lowest quintile.” I’ve discovered that some of my
data was that, but the older stuff was “below the poverty line.” I’ve
now made it all poverty line as the cutoff. Here’s the historical data: