An article in the Week in Review section of today's New York Times reports, "In 1999, after nearly a decade of unprecedented economic growth and well into the latest overhaul of the nation's welfare system, one in six American children -- over 12 million youngsters -- lived in poverty, according to the latest available figures from the Census Bureau."
A look at the Census Bureau statistics to which the Times is referring makes it clear that the Times is overstating the incidence of child poverty in America. The statistics are available on the Internet at http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/poverty99/table5.html. They make clear that there are at least 18 different definitions of poverty, based on whether you take into account the value of non-cash benefits like subsidized school lunches, food stamps, subsidized housing, and the earned-income tax credit. Of those 18 definitions, the one the Times uses in the first sentence of its article is the one that yields one of the largest definitions of poor children. Indeed, by that definition, 16.9 percent of the 71.7 million Americans under age 18 live in poverty -- about 12 million, or one in six. But if you use the most restrictive definition -- measuring poverty after accounting for food stamps, Medicaid, the earned-income tax credit, housing subsidies, etc. -- the portion of Americans under 18 living in poverty drops to 10.9 percent. That's closer to one in nine than one in six, and that's about 8 million poor children -- four million less than the 12 million the Times claims.
It's not just right-wing-lunatic types that recognize this. The Times article relies heavily on an outfit at Columbia University called the National Center for Children in Poverty, which, while retailing the "one-in-six" and "12 million" claim, also concedes in an April 2001 report: "Indeed, approximately 2.5 million children are lifted out of poverty due solely to the federal EIC program." They are "lifted out of poverty," however, only after the Times and Census Bureau count them as poor for the purpose of devising eye-popping child poverty statistics.
Eight million poor children is still a lot, and, if you are a poor child, knowing that there are four million less of you than the Times claims isn't much of a comfort. So why does the Times feel the need to exaggerate the size of this problem? Today's article seems driven less by an ideological agenda (though there may well be one) than by sheer confusion or ignorance. The Times article, for instance, says that "a tax break for the working poor, known as the Earned Income Tax Credit, has enabled them to keep more of what they make." In fact, the whole point of the Earned Income Tax Credit is not so much that lets the poor "keep more of what they make" but that, for many, it adds to their "earnings" over and above what they make. That's the nature of a refundable tax credit. If the federal earned-income tax credit were designed only to let the poor keep more of what they make, it wouldn't be refundable.
One-Sided: A news article in the national section of today's New York Times reports on the policy debate over stem-cell research. It quotes an aide who said that "the White House had been bombarded by passionate pleas from people arguing for or against the research." A reader could search the article in vain for a single quotation or passionate plea from anyone arguing against the research, though the article does include extended references and quotes from at least three sources arguing for the research. Either the aide has it wrong or the Times article is strangely one-sided.
Whimsical: The lead article in the business section of today's New York Times reports a new line of Wal-Mart cosmetics "bearing whimsical names like Sheeny in a Bottle and Do Me a Flavor." The Times may consider "Sheeny in a Bottle" to be a whimsical name, but it is likely to strike more than a few Times readers and Wal-Mart customers as tasteless. Leo Rosten's 1989 "The Joys of Yinglish" defines "sheeny" as a "vulgarism" and "a thoroughly offensive name, combining contempt and disparagement, for a Jew."
Gaming: An article in the Week in Review section of today's New York Times refers to a "gaming executive" who is a donor to Republicans. The Times's own stylebook calls this a euphemism and says "gambling" should be used instead.