The poverty thresholds were originally developed in 1963-1964 by Mollie Orshansky of the Social Security Administration. Orshansky took the dollar costs of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s economy food plan for families of three or more persons and multiplied the costs by a factor of three. She followed somewhat different procedures to calculate thresholds for one- and two-person units in order to allow for the relatively larger fixed costs that small family units face. [...] Orshansky used a factor of three because the Agriculture Department’s 1955 Household Food Consumption Survey found that for families of three or more persons, the average dollar value of all food used during a week (both at home and away from home) accounted for about one third of their total money income after taxes. [...] Poverty thresholds for years since 1963 have been updated for price changes only using the Consumer Price Index.

Cash benefits, e.g., welfare, yes. Non-cash benefits, no. (link)

Here, you say what I said – if you read what I wrote “But if you take money from the public, then the public has the right to say how you spend those resources.”

Could you please provide the information upon which you base the causal connection or correlation between the use of food stamps and drug use?

In my mind, you are in poverty if you cannot afford the resources of sustenance; housing, heat, water, food.

If you have the resources to have these things, you are not living in poverty, whether or not you get those resources from income you earn or from the government.

It’s a distinction from being poor.

Using that definition, how many people do we have living in poverty in this state?

Frankly, I don’t care where anyone spends their money; spend it on cell phones, lottery tickets, 40 ouncers. If you earn it spend on heroin for all I care.

But if you take money from the public, then the public has the right to say how you spend those resources.

It’s why I believe all food stamp and welfare recipients should be drug tested. Section 8 housing recipients should regularly have their home inspected to make sure their are no cohabitants, etc.

In regard to the perception that, if someone has a cellphone, they can’t be poor – I think that’s a very unsophisticated and often mentioned kind of swipe.

You are making a judgment on how people who have limited resources spend those limited resources. But the idea behind living in poverty doesn’t have to do with how you spend what you have – it has to do with the resources you earn or otherwise receive and whether they’re sufficient to live at a certain level. It’s a far more objective standard than you making a judgment that if people only have x amount of money, they should be spending it in a certain way. That’s actually kind of Marxist, don’t you think?

To the extent that programs like food stamps exist, I agree that when using public dollars for such programs, those programs have a right to require that the stamps be spent in a certain way. But remember, no one will qualify for them in connection to whether they forego a cellphone or not, Gordon. It has to do with resources, not how the individual allocates the resources.

And on what grounds would you deny someone a cellphone, given that the balance tipped not long ago to more folks using cells than having landlines?

Why?

Well, I owned a car, a house, a TV, cell phone, VCR etc. etc.

You can drive through the poorest neighborhoods in this state and see that most people there have cell phones.

I don’t think someone being able to text message a buddy is someone who is living in poverty.

In addition, do these income numbers also include welfare benefits, food stamps, subsidized housing etc.?

Does not compute. US Census Bureau estimate of Ohio’s 2006 population: 11,478,006. 11,478,006 x 0.13 = 1,492,141