CDZ Some Math Assistance Here, Please?

[OldLady]

Thought I might start a thread having to do with altering our stereotypes. So I have been in Statistics Land trying to figure out how many black Americans are actually on welfare. I have a big question, as often happens when I venture into statistics land: How can the numbers from various places be so different and what is the REAL answer to my question?

What started me on this path was a casual comment by Gwen Ifill during a discussion, saying 70+% of African Americans have moved out of poverty. It seemed like a good start for my thread. But then came the confusion....

As of 2014, there were 38,605,000 blacks in America. There were 52,500,000 people nationwide collecting welfare. Approximately 40% of those welfare recipients are black. That would be 21,000,000 black Americans collecting welfare. But only 27% of black Americans live in poverty, which is 10,423,350. How does this add up?
It's not my math, it's the starting numbers. I used numbers from 2012 to 2014, which seem to be the most current numbers available. No one site answered my simple question "How many blacks in America today are collecting welfare?" so I got numbers from a couple of sites which seemed reputable, taken from the same time period. But they don't add up.

Can anyone shed light on how to get an answer with any certainty to any of these questions?

 

[Pogo]

If the two numbers don't match, there must be a variation in the definitions.
-- what defines "in poverty" versus what defines "on welfare"? Far as I know qualification for welfare depends on more variables than "poverty" does; if that's the case a significant number can be "on welfare" without being "in poverty".

Of course another significant number could be the reverse case as well, so this gets doubly murky. It's a bit too apples/oranges to get very exact.

 

[320 Years of History]

Thought I might start a thread having to do with altering our stereotypes. So I have been in Statistics Land trying to figure out how many black Americans are actually on welfare. I have a big question, as often happens when I venture into statistics land: How can the numbers from various places be so different and what is the REAL answer to my question?

What started me on this path was a casual comment by Gwen Ifill during a discussion, saying 70+% of African Americans have moved out of poverty. It seemed like a good start for my thread. But then came the confusion....

As of 2014, there were 38,605,000 blacks in America. There were 52,500,000 people nationwide collecting welfare. Approximately 40% of those welfare recipients are black. That would be 21,000,000 black Americans collecting welfare. But only 27% of black Americans live in poverty, which is 10,423,350. How does this add up?
It's not my math, it's the starting numbers. I used numbers from 2012 to 2014, which seem to be the most current numbers available. No one site answered my simple question "How many blacks in America today are collecting welfare?" so I got numbers from a couple of sites which seemed reputable, taken from the same time period. But they don't add up.

Can anyone shed light on how to get an answer with any certainty to any of these questions?

Source links?

 

[OldLady]

Thought I might start a thread having to do with altering our stereotypes. So I have been in Statistics Land trying to figure out how many black Americans are actually on welfare. I have a big question, as often happens when I venture into statistics land: How can the numbers from various places be so different and what is the REAL answer to my question?

What started me on this path was a casual comment by Gwen Ifill during a discussion, saying 70+% of African Americans have moved out of poverty. It seemed like a good start for my thread. But then came the confusion....

As of 2014, there were 38,605,000 blacks in America. There were 52,500,000 people nationwide collecting welfare. Approximately 40% of those welfare recipients are black. That would be 21,000,000 black Americans collecting welfare. But only 27% of black Americans live in poverty, which is 10,423,350. How does this add up?
It's not my math, it's the starting numbers. I used numbers from 2012 to 2014, which seem to be the most current numbers available. No one site answered my simple question "How many blacks in America today are collecting welfare?" so I got numbers from a couple of sites which seemed reputable, taken from the same time period. But they don't add up.

Can anyone shed light on how to get an answer with any certainty to any of these questions?

Source links?

I don't find the original site where I found 38,605,000 blacks live in America. The Wikipedia site lists 38.9 mil. The below says 45.7 million, which includes "alone or in combination with one or more other races 2014" which the first number I cited did not include. Another site said 42 mil, unknown if it includes "two or more races." I didn't use those figures because it didn't specify which races/unknown how many were black.
African American Demographics, Population, Incomes, Veterans, Education, Voting
Welfare Statistics – Statistic Brain This one I couldn't use because I wound up with more blacks on welfare than live in the country. The % of welfare recipients who are black was consistent with other sites, though --approx 40%
Who’s on Welfare? 9 Shocking Stats About Public Assistance
Demography of the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[320 Years of History]

As of 2014, there were 38,605,000 blacks in America. There were 52,500,000 people nationwide collecting welfare. Approximately 40% of those welfare recipients are black. That would be 21,000,000 black Americans collecting welfare. But only 27% of black Americans live in poverty, which is 10,423,350. How does this add up?

I don't find the original site where I found 38,605,000 blacks live in America.

Red
Well, absent being able to view the sources for the information to discover what their figures specifically represent, I can't give an accurate reconciling of the figures. The best I can do is offer some thoughts about where you may be able to apply a greater degree of circumspection and/or rigor in your interpretation of the figures you have found/use. That's what my "Green section" remarks give some insight into doing.

Green:
I glean that you may have have either a false premise or have made an invalid inference in considering the information you've presented/encountered.

1. Being poor, which all welfare recipients generally are (or are expected to be) isn't necessarily the same as being impoverished, the latter being a more extreme state of being poor. Or, to put it another way, poverty is a state of existence that entails living on a range of incomes. One can accurately say, "Everyone who is impoverished is poor." One cannot accurately say, "Everyone who is poor is impoverished." Why? Because there are precisely defined measures of what it means to be "impoverished," but no empirical measures define "poor." Thus being poor is necessarily a qualitative state of being, not a quantitative state of being.
   
   For example, a family/person living in D.C. on $30K/year and having to use that income to pay for housing, food, transportation, heat, water, etc. is poor, they have very little, if any, discretionarily disposable income. Are they below the poverty level, thus "in poverty?" Not necessarily; in fact, if they are a family smaller than six, they are not. Might they receive welfare benefits of some sort? It's absolutely possible that they do or at least can. (See #3 below.)
   
   I realize you didn't write "poor." The point I'm illustrating is that you'll want to closely/critically consider the terms you used and those you encountered in whatever sources you used to make sure that the terms that are connected with empirical data indeed have quantitative measures. You'll also want to make sure none of them have used a catch-all term without explaining the nature and extent of the applicability (as they've used the catch-all term) of that term. "Welfare," for example is a catch-all term for several kinds of public assistance.
2. One aim of welfare programs is to "lift" folks out of poverty status. Lifting folks out of poverty, however, isn't about to leave being them anything other than poor, but welfare programs are by and large effective at getting folks out of poverty.
3. You do the math, it's quite possible that one can be above the poverty level and still qualify for and receive one or several types of welfare: food stamps, housing assistance, direct assistance, etc. Here's a site that explains food stamp eligibility. I'll leave you to find the ones that pertain to others forms of welfare assistance and their eligibility guidelines.

I didn't use those figures because

LOL...You aren't my mother are you? LOL Routinely, I will ask her what she wants, thinks, believes, intends to do, did want, used to think, etc. and in replying she'll tell me what she doesn't think, didn't do, doesn't want to do, etc. LOL My father occasionally does that too. I think they do so out of reticence to state they don't know what they want, think, intend, etc. Now why that is I cannot begin to say; they didn't raise me to be that way.

Seeing your ID name, I wonder if that behavior pattern/response is age related? I don't know. (I'm not chiding you, or them for that matter...just making an anecdotal observation/connection.)

The % of welfare recipients who are black was consistent with other sites, though --approx 40%

Well, that's a good thing. It suggests that figure is not one that needs a greater degree of critical evaluation.

 

[OldLady]

Well, absent being able to view the sources for the information to discover what their figures specifically represent, I can't give an accurate reconciling of the figures.
Is something wrong with your computer? I spent quite awhile retracing my steps to tell you what links I used, since you asked.
I was hoping to get something useful, not just having you use the opportunity to make yourself sound smarter than me.
I'm no more enlightened than before -- it was obvious to me that studies are using different measuring sticks for their figures, but my question is how to figure out what is actually being used in any given study so I can indeed compare apples to apples. I was also hopeful someone 'up' on the facts might have a clear answer.

 

[320 Years of History]

Well, absent being able to view the sources for the information to discover what their figures specifically represent, I can't give an accurate reconciling of the figures.
Is something wrong with your computer? I spent quite awhile retracing my steps to tell you what links I used, since you asked.
I was hoping to get something useful, not just having you use the opportunity to make yourself sound smarter than me.
I'm no more enlightened than before -- it was obvious to me that studies are using different measuring sticks for their figures, but my question is how to figure out what is actually being used in any given study so I can indeed compare apples to apples. I was also hopeful someone 'up' on the facts might have a clear answer.

To be perfectly honest, I was willing to examine the data and give a more precise answer. Upon reading your post, it wasn't clear to me which source you used for each of the respective figures, and, quite frankly, I wasn't willing to dig through them to figure out which came from where. If you'll make it clear, I'm still willing to examine the data. If you would please use the following template:

• "52,500,000 people nationwide collecting welfare" -- [insert source]
  
  I don't know how your source qualified the 52.5M quantity it cites as the number of folks who received welfare. That figure corresponds to the quantity of people who in any given month (i.e., on average over the 12 months of the year) received welfare benefits in 2012, but it does not correspond to or assert to be the overall quantity of people in the U.S. population who at some point in the year received welfare benefits, nor does it correspond to or assert to be in the U.S. population of black folks who received them at some point during the year.
  
  The government's own figures for 2012 indicate that the quantity of folks who at some point (at least once during the year) in 2012 received welfare was "109,631,000 Americans" as reported by CNS News. The source of that is here. For that same figure to truly be 52.5M in 2014, over half the folks who received welfare no longer did as of 2014. I'm sure some of the 2012 recipients died, but I doubt that 50M+ of them did. Our economy isn't "in the tank," but neither is it doing so well that some 50M+ people truly didn't need and qualify for welfare benefits in the period between 2012 and 2014.
  
  
• "40% of those welfare recipients are black" -- [insert source]
  
  If you read the Census Bureau's 2012 report about participation in welfare programs, you'll find it says, "In 2012, the average monthly participation rate for Blacks, 41.6 percent." You'll also find that it defines the participation rate as "the share of the group receiving assistance, on average, during each month of the year in question." Notice it says "share of the group receiving assistance." It does not say "share of the population of "this or that" segment of the overall population.
  
  Accordingly, "the group" is the group of people who receive public assistance (the group of folks who received welfare benefits), not the group referred to as the "the population of black folks in the U.S." Therefore, the correct interpretation/paraphrasing of the 41.6% figure with regard to blacks is "41.6% of the people who receive welfare benefits are black people." Seeing that figure and construing it to mean "41.6% of black people receive welfare" is to misconstrue what the Census Bureau has stated, or possibly, in the case of some folks , a deliberate mischaracterization of the data the Bureau provided. (I don't remotely think you deliberately sought to misrepresent the data.)
  
  
• "21,000,000 black Americans collecting welfare" -- [insert source or show the calculation you performed]
  
• "A casual comment by Gwen Ifill" -- [insert source or some sort of info that will help me chase down the conversation]
• "70+% of African Americans have moved out of poverty" -- [insert what you think that phrase means]
• "27% of black Americans live in poverty" -- [insert source]

Blue:
I didn't take the opportunity to show I'm smarter than you, or even that I'm smart at all. I was trying to show you some of the possible mistakes in the approach and interpretation you used/applied to the data you provided. I was hoping you'd use the input to figure out for yourself where you made the mistake and what is the nature of the mistake you made. There are a number of possible mistakes you could have made:

• misapplying arithmetical logic
• reading misinterpretation/miscomprehension
• relying on data that was not accurately/precisely presented
• none of those, but some other(s)
• some combination of the above.

I'd have been more precise, but as I said, it wasn't clear to me what source you provided went with which piece of information, so I did the best I could to help you as best I could given how I understood (or didn't) what you provided.

FWIW, I'm smart enough to know that I am smart, but I'm not arrogant enough to care whether I'm smarter or less smart than anyone else, including you. I'm nearly 60 years old, have raised three kids, had a wonderful career, and I'm looking to retire soon; showing my relative smartness in comparison to others is, at this point in my life, of no use to me or them. I've already achieved everything important that I'm going to or know that I want to as a consequence of whatever smarts I possess, and I'm perfectly satisfied with my achievements.

Other:
52,500,000 x 0.416 = 21,840,000 ==> 21.8M people who receive welfare benefits in any given month are black people. One cannot validly infer from that piece of information that 59.4% of the U.S. black population does not receive welfare.

You asked how it can be so that 21.8M blacks received welfare and 27% (10.4M) of the total U.S. population of black folks (~38M) can live in poverty when 21.8M black people receive welfare.

• I explained one way by which that can be in subsections #1 and #3 of the "Green" section of my earlier post. Another way that can happen is that there are black folks who get counted in the population of black folks and who don't receive welfare benefits, which might be the case if a non-working and "broke" black person who is provided for by friends or family members and as a matter of conscience doesn't receive (be it due to unsuccessfully applying or by quite simply not applying) welfare benefits and in turn do not actually receive them.

 

[jwoodie]

WARNING: THIS IS A TABOO SUBJECT. ANY FURTHER INQUIRY WILL BRAND YOU A RACIST.

 

[Never3ndr]

Thought I might start a thread having to do with altering our stereotypes. So I have been in Statistics Land trying to figure out how many black Americans are actually on welfare. I have a big question, as often happens when I venture into statistics land: How can the numbers from various places be so different and what is the REAL answer to my question?

What started me on this path was a casual comment by Gwen Ifill during a discussion, saying 70+% of African Americans have moved out of poverty. It seemed like a good start for my thread. But then came the confusion....

As of 2014, there were 38,605,000 blacks in America. There were 52,500,000 people nationwide collecting welfare. Approximately 40% of those welfare recipients are black. That would be 21,000,000 black Americans collecting welfare. But only 27% of black Americans live in poverty, which is 10,423,350. How does this add up?
It's not my math, it's the starting numbers. I used numbers from 2012 to 2014, which seem to be the most current numbers available. No one site answered my simple question "How many blacks in America today are collecting welfare?" so I got numbers from a couple of sites which seemed reputable, taken from the same time period. But they don't add up.

Can anyone shed light on how to get an answer with any certainty to any of these questions?

You don't have to live in poverty to get welfare. Welfare includes food stamps / food assistance. You can actually be middle class and still get food assistance in certain situations (like the WIC program).

 

[koshergrl]

Thought I might start a thread having to do with altering our stereotypes. So I have been in Statistics Land trying to figure out how many black Americans are actually on welfare. I have a big question, as often happens when I venture into statistics land: How can the numbers from various places be so different and what is the REAL answer to my question?

What started me on this path was a casual comment by Gwen Ifill during a discussion, saying 70+% of African Americans have moved out of poverty. It seemed like a good start for my thread. But then came the confusion....

As of 2014, there were 38,605,000 blacks in America. There were 52,500,000 people nationwide collecting welfare. Approximately 40% of those welfare recipients are black. That would be 21,000,000 black Americans collecting welfare. But only 27% of black Americans live in poverty, which is 10,423,350. How does this add up?
It's not my math, it's the starting numbers. I used numbers from 2012 to 2014, which seem to be the most current numbers available. No one site answered my simple question "How many blacks in America today are collecting welfare?" so I got numbers from a couple of sites which seemed reputable, taken from the same time period. But they don't add up.

Can anyone shed light on how to get an answer with any certainty to any of these questions?

You can't know the true numbers because the question about race on the welfare applications is totally voluntary. People will be Hispanic and American Indian on one application, and then the next one they'll be non Hispanic and black.

 

[koshergrl]

But this is about the clearest way to look at it:

Welfare Demographics
Percent of recipients who are white 38.8 %
Percent of recipients who are black 39.8 %



Welfare Statistics – Statistic Brain

So 39.8 percent of welfare recipients are black...


iWhite alone, percent, July 1, 2014, (V2014) (a)
77.4%

iBlack or African American alone, percent, July 1, 2014, (V2014) (a)
13.2%

And yet they are only 13.20 percent of the population.

Population estimates, July 1, 2015, (V2015)

 

[OldLady]

Thought I might start a thread having to do with altering our stereotypes. So I have been in Statistics Land trying to figure out how many black Americans are actually on welfare. I have a big question, as often happens when I venture into statistics land: How can the numbers from various places be so different and what is the REAL answer to my question?

What started me on this path was a casual comment by Gwen Ifill during a discussion, saying 70+% of African Americans have moved out of poverty. It seemed like a good start for my thread. But then came the confusion....

As of 2014, there were 38,605,000 blacks in America. There were 52,500,000 people nationwide collecting welfare. Approximately 40% of those welfare recipients are black. That would be 21,000,000 black Americans collecting welfare. But only 27% of black Americans live in poverty, which is 10,423,350. How does this add up?
It's not my math, it's the starting numbers. I used numbers from 2012 to 2014, which seem to be the most current numbers available. No one site answered my simple question "How many blacks in America today are collecting welfare?" so I got numbers from a couple of sites which seemed reputable, taken from the same time period. But they don't add up.

Can anyone shed light on how to get an answer with any certainty to any of these questions?

You don't have to live in poverty to get welfare. Welfare includes food stamps / food assistance. You can actually be middle class and still get food assistance in certain situations (like the WIC program).

Why are we buying milk and cereal for middle class people?

 

[320 Years of History]

Thought I might start a thread having to do with altering our stereotypes. So I have been in Statistics Land trying to figure out how many black Americans are actually on welfare. I have a big question, as often happens when I venture into statistics land: How can the numbers from various places be so different and what is the REAL answer to my question?

What started me on this path was a casual comment by Gwen Ifill during a discussion, saying 70+% of African Americans have moved out of poverty. It seemed like a good start for my thread. But then came the confusion....

As of 2014, there were 38,605,000 blacks in America. There were 52,500,000 people nationwide collecting welfare. Approximately 40% of those welfare recipients are black. That would be 21,000,000 black Americans collecting welfare. But only 27% of black Americans live in poverty, which is 10,423,350. How does this add up?
It's not my math, it's the starting numbers. I used numbers from 2012 to 2014, which seem to be the most current numbers available. No one site answered my simple question "How many blacks in America today are collecting welfare?" so I got numbers from a couple of sites which seemed reputable, taken from the same time period. But they don't add up.

Can anyone shed light on how to get an answer with any certainty to any of these questions?

You don't have to live in poverty to get welfare. Welfare includes food stamps / food assistance. You can actually be middle class and still get food assistance in certain situations (like the WIC program).

Why are we buying milk and cereal for middle class people?

I don't think we do.

To be eligible for WIC benefits, among other things, applicants' gross income (i.e. before taxes are withheld) must fall at or below 185 percent of the U.S. Poverty Income Guidelines. State income requirements may be between 100 percent and 185 percent of federal poverty guidelines, though most states use the maximum guideline. This is approximately $43k annually for a family of four in the 48 contiguous states in 2013.

Here are the U.S. poverty level guidelines for 2016.

Based on the above and on what one observes using Pew Research's "Are you Middle Class" calculator, people who meet the WIC income requirements are not middle class. The calculator doesn't account for COLA differences in more and less expensive localities. Even so, it's hard to imagine a family of four living a middle class lifestyle on $43K/year (total income) anywhere in the U.S. What one can be and receive WIC benefits is "working poor."