Brain Trust - Robert Rector

Robert Rector, a Heritage Foundation Senior Research Fellow, is a leading national authority on poverty, the U.S.welfare system, and immigration. Here are the "CliffsNotes" of his segment.

Tell us about the report that just came out on poverty.

Well, yesterday's census reported that in America, 46 million people were "poor".

The report is accurate in that it measures the level of unemployment, and a lot of people in the working class have been hit very hard by the recession.


But to the average American, poverty means you don't have enough food to eat, or a house to live in.

The reality is that only one percent of the "poor" are homeless.

The typical home of a poor American has air conditioning and cable TV.A quarter of them have a TiVo.

96 percent of parents who are poor say that their child was never hungry because of lack of food in the home.

A poor family in the U.S. today is struggling to pay for the cable, the air conditioning, the computer, rather than struggling to put food on the table.

Do we have too low of a bar?

When these polls are done, they don't count any of the assistance that poor people receive - the cash, food, housing, medical care, and social services targeted at poor Americans.

These polls are designed to exaggerate the state of poverty in the U.S. in order to engender greater welfare spending.

A third of poor people now have a plasma TV. A poor child is much more likely to live in a home with a cable tv, a computer, and a tevo set than they are to be hungry.

These are things that we should feel good about. Poor people are living much better than anyone expects.
Those that are hungry are a pretty small percentage of the poor.

We as taxpayers are paying an awful lot to support the poor, and we're not getting much credit in this annual poverty report.