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Re: [OM] Who's Right

Subject: Re: [OM] Who's Right
From: Tina Manley <images@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2016 20:00:18 -0500
I am judging solely by my experience with soup kitchens, food pantries, and
delivering Meals on Wheels.  I looked for something to illustrate how many
seniors are living in poverty but could find nothing that reflects what I
see around here.  There is a long waiting list for Meals on Wheels.  It is
often the only meal that seniors get a day.  If meals are not delivered on
the week-end, seniors don't eat.  If they can make it to a soup kitchen,
usually only if they can walk there, they can get a sandwich and some soup
5 days a week.  Many seniors cannot afford their prescriptions and food so
they give one up.  Maybe it's just in my area of the south, but I see more
seniors alone waiting for help than I see on the golf courses around here.
But then I do work for mission groups so I see more than many do.  Our
government has sadly failed many people who fall between the cracks,
especially where health-care is concerned.

PS.  I am scanning many of the photos from Meals on Wheels, food pantries,
and soup kitchens and hope to edit and post some soon.

Tina

On Sun, Feb 28, 2016 at 7:41 PM, Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Well, they are all right, except that they are using statistics to lie,
> probably both unintentionally, through misunderstanding, and intentionally.
>
> The report Tina linked to looks only at income on the plus side and
> adjusts effective income downward based on things like average regional
> housing costs.
>
> Yes, there are a lot of poor seniors in the US. Yes, a lot of them are
> very badly off. BUT, I don't think this report provides meaningful
> information about the details of that situation. That's because it doesn't
> look at all at assets/wealth and individual dwelling unit costs. Home
> ownership is a huge factor in financial well being for seniors. Someone who
> has to pay rent out of SS is way worse off than someone who doesn't.
> Someone who owns their home also has an asset that can be tapped for
> income, but which appears to be hidden/ignored in this report.
>
> As part of the SPM adjustment, regional housing cost averages are used to
> adjust everyone, both those it affects, renters, and those it doesn't.
>
> The CPS does collect housing cost info, but the way this report is
> written, it sounds like that was not used, or at least not for the SPM. It
> is, of course, possible that those who compiled the underlying data did it
> more correctly than the summary report implies. But I can't know that.
>
> I had no idea of the overall situation of poor seniors in the US, or of
> regional and local differences. And I know not one whit more about that now
> than I did before reading this report.
>
> Unlike Nathan, I didn't pursue a career in economics. I did get a BA in it
> at Berkeley and learned quite a lot about what national economic statistics
> are and how very difficult it is both to do a decent job of compiling them
> and make meaningful use of them. Later, I ran a market research operation,
> and was again involved with them, as well as smaller scale data. They are
> extremely important information and incredibly easy to misread or
> intentionally use to 'prove' things they don't in fact say.
>
> The Guardian article Chris links to reports on cohort wealth, not
> individual income or assets. This is important to the UK, but says nothing
> about per capita or per family income or wealth. It is completely
> meaningless as any sort of comparison to the US data above.
>
> The Telegraph article focuses on income, as opposed to wealth. Although
> they talk about the same overall phenomenon, increased economic well being
> for seniors, the two articles choose to do so in very different ways, both
> incompatible with each other and both incomplete, as one only measures
> assets, the other only income. One might even guess that the Guardian's
> readership is weighted toward a financially better off portion of the
> population than that of the Telegraph?
>
> Simple example: The Guardian says:
>
> "the share of total wealth held in households headed by someone aged under
> 45 fell from 20% in the years approaching the recession to 16% in 2010-12.
> By contrast the share of wealth of households headed by someone aged 65-74
> has gone up and now exceeds the under-45 age group."
>
> Without knowing the composition of the under 45 cohort and without knowing
> the size of each cohort, this statement contains no useful, concrete
> information whatsoever, at least to someone in the US without an
> understanding of standard UK economic statistics. I know what Head of
> Household means in the US, but not the UK. The statistical treatment of
> individuals living alone, in shared accommodations and in group quarters is
> crucial to these measures, and could be the same or very different in the
> two countries.
>
> If there are twice as many in the younger cohort as the older one, the
> older folks are actually worse off than the younger ones, although less so
> now than in the recent past. Reverse that number and the picture is
> completely different.
>
> The above is why regular people don't like economists and why politicians,
> the press and many citizens drive economists crazy.
>
> Dismal Science Moose
>
> --
> What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
> --
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>


-- 
Tina Manley
http:// <http://tina-manley.artistwebsites.com/>www.tinamanley.com
http://socialdocumentary.net/photographer/tinamanley
http://tina-manley.artistwebsites.com/
-- 
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