As the 2016 presidential hopefuls travel the country, they are undoubtedly on a mission to play up their strengths and, for the Republicans, say why they are a better choice than Democrats, who have held the White House for the last two terms.
Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush (R) was recently in North Carolina talking to reporters at the state GOP headquarters. While discussing the death of Freddie Gray, the Baltimore man who died after being arrested, Bush pointed out that the national conversation needs to focus on poverty and what can be done to eliminate it. Bush said this about poverty in the United States:
"There are more poor people today as a percentage of our population than the 1970s."
Our partners at PolitiFact Florida took a look at Bush's claim to see if he had his facts correct. PolitiFact reporter Joshua Gillin says that Bush's claim rates MOSTLY TRUE on the Truth-O-Meter. Gillin said that Bush's wording of his statement is key to the claim.
"We went back and looked at the statistics for the Federal Poverty Level," said Gillin. "In 2013, the last year we have full numbers, the poverty rate was about 14.5 percent of the population, while the rate in the 1970's topped out around 12.5 percent, and remember, we're talking about these percentages as a percentage of the population, which is the language that former Gov. Bush used in his statement."
Gillin notes that another calculation closes that gap between now and then. "If you include government-assisted programs in the mix, the number for the Supplemental Poverty Measure from the 1970's actually creeps up a bit, and that difference between then and now disappears," said Gillin. "However, that's not generally the percentage that is used, and social scientists and experts we talked to said that they usually stick with the straight Federal Poverty Level when comparing different years."
Gillin said that because Bush used the phrase "percentage of our population," his claim is pretty accurate, leading to a MOSTLY TRUE rating from PolitiFact's Truth-O-Meter.
SOURCES: Is poverty wrose now than in the 1970's?
- PolitiFact ruling
- Raleigh News and Observer video, Jeb Bush on Race Relations and poverty, May 1, 2015
- Chicago Tribune, "Commentary: Jeb Bush’s war on poverty revamp," May 6, 2015
- U.S. Census, "The Effect of the Changes to the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement on Estimates of the Supplemental Poverty Measure," 2014
- Center on Budget Policy and Priorities, "Chart book: the war on poverty at 50," Jan. 6, 2014
- Center on Budget Policy and Priorities, "Commentary: War on poverty: large positive impact, but work remains," Jan. 7, 2014
- National Bureau of Economic Research, "Waging war on poverty: historical trends in poverty using the supplemental poverty measure," January 2014
- National Bureau of Economic Research, "An assessment of the effectiveness of anti-poverty programs in the United States," May 2011
- Brookings Institution, "Combating poverty: understanding new challenges for families," June 5, 2012
- Institute for Research on Poverty, Greg Acs, the director of the Urban Institute’s Income and Benefits Policy Center, "Poverty and welfare," Spring/summer 2014
- Former Gov. Jeb Bush, Speech in Detroit, Feb. 4, 2015
- TIME, "Despite statistics, we haven’t lost the war on poverty," Jan. 8, 2015
- PolitiFact, "Bernie Sanders said poverty in U.S. s at an all-time high," Jan. 23, 2013
- PolitiFact, "Tavis Smiley says one out of two Americans ... are living either in or near poverty," April 23, 2012
- The Washington Post’s The Fact Checker, "Paul Ryan’s slick use of poverty rates to declare the war on poverty a failure," May 6, 2015
- Interview, Douglas Besharov, professor of public policy at the University of Maryland, May 5, 2015
- Interview, Matt Gorman, Right to Rise PAC spokesman, May 6, 2015
- Interview, Arloc Sherman, senior researcher at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, May 6, 2015
- Interview, Matt Gorman, Right to Rise PAC spokesman, May 6, 2015
- Interview, Christopher Wimer, Columbia Population Research Center research scientist, May 6, 2015