and the amount saved. (A more detailed discussion of the definition of income is included in chapter 17). A family's income consists not only of the cash it receives but also in-kind transfers -payments in commodities or services as opposed to cash. The official definition's omission of in-kind income can lead to misleading estimates of the poverty rate. Imagine, for example, that your community provided poor people with vouchers that allowed them to live in the best hotel and eat in the fanciest restauran t in town. The official poverty rate would not change at all. While the government does not provide luxuries to the poor, it does provide food stamps, low-income housing programs, and subsidized medical care. According to the US Bureau of the Census (2007), including various noncash benefits from the government would reduce the official poverty rate from 12.5 percent to 10.3 percent. One major form of in-kind income is the value of time adults devote to their households. The official data miss important differences in the levels of economic resources available to single-parent versus two-parent families and between two-parent families with both parents working versus those with one parent at home. In-kind income is also provided by durable goods. The most important example is a house, which provides its owner with a flow of housing services. The value of these services is the cost to the homeowner of renting a comparable dwelling. Thus, if a family owns a home that could rent for $5,000 per year, then this S5,000 should be included in its income. This observation is cogent given that more than 48 percent households with incomes below $15,000 are homeowners.
Census Income Ignores Taxes
All of the income before tax. Hence, the fact that the income tax system takes a larger share of income from high- than from low-income families is not reflected in the numbers. One of the most important programs for redistributing income to the poor, the eamed income tax credit
and the amount saved. (A more detailed discussion of the definition of income is included in chapter 17). A family's income consists not only of the cash it receives but also in-kind transfers -payments in commodities or services as opposed to cash. The official definition's omission of in-kind income can lead to misleading estimates of the poverty rate. Imagine, for example, that your community provided poor people with vouchers that allowed them to live in the best hotel and eat in the fanciest restauran t in town. The official poverty rate would not change at all. While the government does not provide luxuries to the poor, it does provide food stamps, low-income housing programs, and subsidized medical care. According to the US Bureau of the Census (2007), including various noncash benefits from the government would reduce the official poverty rate from 12.5 percent to 10.3 percent. One major form of in-kind income is the value of time adults devote to their households. The official data miss important differences in the levels of economic resources available to single-parent versus two-parent families and between two-parent families with both parents working versus those with one parent at home. In-kind income is also provided by durable goods. The most important example is a house, which provides its owner with a flow of housing services. The value of these services is the cost to the homeowner of renting a comparable dwelling. Thus, if a family owns a home that could rent for $5,000 per year, then this S5,000 should be included in its income. This observation is cogent given that more than 48 percent households with incomes below $15,000 are homeowners. Census Income Ignores TaxesAll of the income before tax. Hence, the fact that the income tax system takes a larger share of income from high- than from low-income families is not reflected in the numbers. One of the most important programs for redistributing income to the poor, the eamed income tax credit
การแปล กรุณารอสักครู่..