Income Growth and its Distribution from Eisenhower to Obama: The Growing Importance of In-Kind Transfers (1959-2016)

Evaluating the Success of President Johnson’s War on Poverty: Revisiting the Historical Record Using an Absolute Full-Income Poverty Measure

“…Note especially that in the period when all three poverty rates fell the most from 1963 to the end of the 1970s, the largest percentage falls were in the absolute FPM poverty rate (75 percent decline by 1979), followed by the official poverty rate (41 percent decline by 1978), and the relative FPM poverty rate (20 percent decline by 1978). As we will discuss this ordering is in large part because economic growth in full income for all Americans grew substantially over this period (Elwell, Corinth and Burkhauser 2020) including the middle and bottom quintiles. The absolute FPM poverty rate drops the most since its thresholds are constant in real terms and because it includes growth in income not captured in the Official Poverty Measure (non-cash transfers like food stamps and Medicaid and Medicare implemented in the early 1960s and expanded in the 1970s).…”

“…The market value of employer provided health insurance is calculated based on the cost paid by employers on behalf of their employees, excluding any premiums paid by employees or their families. This value is determined based on average employer payments for health care (see Elwell, Corinth and Burkhauser 2020 and Appendix A for further details).…”

“…Recognizing the uncertainty of trends in the value of uncompensated care, we do not attempt to estimate the value of this care and instead show absolute FPM rates both with and without including the market value of health insurance.13 As discussed in Appendix A, the Census Bureau provided these values from 1979 and 2014. We followElwell, Corinth and Burkhauser (2020) to estimate these values in years prior to 1979 and we follow procedures from the CensusBureau (2015) to estimate these values for years since 2015. Consistent with the Census Bureau's approach and the tendency for "dual-eligible" individuals to have higher medical costs, individuals who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid are assigned the sum of the market value of Medicare and Medicaid.…”