Income inequality has been rising on the political agenda, yet one group has been left out of the discussion: seniors. Older adults are somewhat less likely than working-age adults to be poor by the government’s traditional poverty measure, developed in the 1960s. But this official measure may understate the extent to which seniors live in poverty. […]
Kuttner, Galston, and the Debate Over the Social Safety Net
I take exception to most of the assumptions and conclusions in William Galston’s piece. For starters, the debate about entitlement programs is needs to be located within a larger debate about the mixed economy. Galston begins by asserting: “I take it we agree that suitably structured and regulated markets generate wealth more effectively than other economic […]