Introduction

The latest numbers which I believe are from 2015 are that roughly 13 and a half percent of the US population lives in what the Census Bureau defines as poverty. When we talk about poverty statistics, we count money that people earn at their job. We count social security retirement benefits. We count investment income. But what we don't count are things that the government gives to people expressly for the purpose of alleviating poverty. So you kind of have a a before and an after view of poverty. What what poverty looks like before the government does what it does. And then what it looks like after.