New York, NY – The Bloomberg administration, frustrated by the federal government's Great Society method of determining who is poor, is developing its own measure, which city officials say will offer a more modern and accurate picture of poverty.
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Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg wants to adopt the new measure in part so he can better assess whether the tens of millions of dollars the city plans to spend on new anti-poverty programs will improve poor people's standard of living.
But officials also hope the new measure will set off a nationwide re-examination of the current federal standard, and prompt other cities and states to adopt the city's method.
The 42-year-old federal poverty standard, which is pegged to the annual cost of buying basic groceries, is widely viewed as outdated and off-target. The city's formula would take into account the money families must spend annually on necessities including rent, utilities and child care. But it would also factor in the value of financial assistance received, like housing vouchers or food stamps.
The politics of determining a poverty level are intense because the number largely determines eligibility for numerous federal entitlement programs. And, perhaps as important, it is used by people across the political spectrum as they debate how well this nation cares for its less fortunate.
Of course, New York City's adoption of a new calculus, which skeptics predict is certain to conclude that there are more poor here than previously counted, could be met with opposition from other areas around the country, like rural states, especially if the city uses the new measure to argue that it deserves more federal aid.
But city officials say their efforts are driven by Mayor Bloomberg's second-term pledge to reduce poverty. [NY Times]
You guys hate Bloomberg because we finally have a mayor that ENFORCES ALL THE LAWS and we are a t a time you just can’t do what you please and get away with it.
This is why many of you are uncomfortable with Mayor Mike.
He ain’t going anywhere so deal with it. Soon he will be our Prez so get used to him NOW!!
Excuse me bozo. You worried about parking fines? If your getting fines then you damn deserve it. I have been at the wheel for 42 years and got one ticket. One ticket in 42 years and that because i do not do stupid things then complain about it. If you obey the LAWS you have nothing to wrry about.
the ones that are poor are the homeless, living on welfare because they’re uneducated to get a decent job, ones who barely have money to put bread on the table.
12:24 AM
Be more careful no one else’s fault but your own.
Concern for people’s lives? How about the whole sale giving over of every street corner of New York’s most desirable neighborhoods to foreign investors from Europe, Islamic States, Asian countries, from the Middle East building apartment condominium high risers eliminating neighborhood businesses, blocking sunlight to pedestrian traffic – grotesque over use of water conduits, sewage system, electricity, wiring/wireless communication enabling infrastructure, traffic including the transporting of food, goods and services – amid too often architecture designs so bent on using every inch for financial bottom line calculation in unchallenged contempt for esthetic considerations. Impact on the quality of life for those not living in these towers of cement and wiring is incalcuable. Glass prototype buildings vulnerable to elements, time and God forbid given the challenge from foreign heathens out to destroy our civilization with New York formost on their agenda.
Mayor Bloomberg is focused on financial transactions living in a high rise life most of us don’t nor will ever be in position to entertain for ourselves. While eviscerating New York’s quality of life the cost and price paid by the rest of us for the real estate building empires and worship of its gods of clay.
And Mayor Michael Bloomberg caring about the poor and huddled masses yearning to breathe free? Hardly.
This mayor has the chutzpah to double up the parkings fines, and then ask who is poor? What! Is he off his rocker! this raacher ganuv oif inzer chesbin, shame shame on mayor money-berg!!
I’ll tell you who is poor!
All of us who constanly get stampeded with parking tickets.