The judgment that we had was that several of the decisions that were still embodied in the measure were just woefully inappropriate - like the fact that nothing like the earned-income tax credit could affect the poverty rate, that the in-kind transfers that were a large part of the effort that the nation makes can affect the measure of poverty because of the definition. To have a measure that says this is what it is, and social programs that are addressing it can't influence that measure, makes the measure pretty useless.
|