采用绝对全收入贫困衡量方法评估1963年以来反贫困战争的成效

中文摘要

我们按照林登·B·约翰逊总统对反贫困战争的定义评估其进展；该定义确立了20%的基准贫困率，并采用绝对标准。官方贫困率从1963年的19.5%降至2019年的10.5%，而我们的绝对全收入贫困衡量指标——采用更全面的收入衡量方法，且仅根据通货膨胀更新贫困线——则从19.5%降至1.6%。然而，我们也表明，相对贫困的降幅较为有限。此外，在此期间，对政府的依赖有所上升：来自市场来源的收入不足其总收入一半的劳动年龄成年人占比增加了一倍以上。

Abstract

We evaluate progress in the War on Poverty as President Lyndon B. Johnson defined it, which established a 20% baseline poverty rate and adopted an absolute standard. While the official poverty rate fell from 19.5% in 1963 to 10.5% in 2019, our absolute full-income poverty measure—which uses a fuller income measure and updates thresholds only for inflation—fell from 19.5% to 1.6%. However, we also show that relative poverty reductions have been modest. Additionally, government dependence increased over this time, with the share of working-age adults receiving under half their income from market sources more than doubling.