Child Poverty & Other Trends -- A Twitter Thread by Noah Smith

[Curating note: This is clumsy reading because I failed to uncheck "parent tweet" when copying the embed code. I discovered my mistake about halfway through and decided to finish with the mistake for the sake of consistency. I will not make that mistake in future. Too much hard work to correct.]

1/I talk to a lot of socialists who are very convinced that material deprivation is rising, both in America and around the world. And that this is a consequence of neoliberalism's intellectual dominance.

Wrong, and wrong.

— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) November 13, 2017

2/First, let's talk about America. Child poverty has risen a lot, right?

Nope. It's at an all-time low. https://t.co/DcX2o9rxeE

— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) November 13, 2017

3/Why has child poverty in America fallen so dramatically?

Because of government. Because of redistribution. pic.twitter.com/TGQQcIUmBh

— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) November 13, 2017

4/Next, homelessness. There are more and more homeless people on the streets, right?

Nope. Homelessness has fallen a lot in America. https://t.co/uzDElEagiW

— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) November 13, 2017

5/And why did this decline happen?

Because of government. Because of redistribution. pic.twitter.com/bY9yNwjYAZ

— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) November 13, 2017

6/In fact, homelessness throughout America is still falling (though what remains is becoming more concentrated in big cities). https://t.co/8sUBtFMEqj

— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) November 13, 2017

7/Now let's talk about the rest of the world. Colonialism has impoverished most of the world for the benefit of a few rich countries, right?

Not recently, nope.

— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) November 13, 2017

8/Decolonization eventually led to a dramatic burst of growth in poor countries that is CLOBBERING world poverty. pic.twitter.com/pIHryW9eaP

— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) November 13, 2017

9/Just look at that graph. Look at how the # of people in absolute poverty rises smoothly until colonialism ends, then begins to fall relentlessly.

Decolonization worked. pic.twitter.com/uJVPYMBuL6

— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) November 13, 2017

10/OK, but "absolute poverty" is just a stupid number, right? What about all the kids dying??

FAR FEWER KIDS ARE DYING. pic.twitter.com/VgTybrjbRr

— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) November 13, 2017

11/How about people going hungry?

In all regions except the Middle East, hunger has fallen enormously since the end of colonialism. Africa and East Asia have seen the biggest drops. pic.twitter.com/NFEoODvE6u

— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) November 13, 2017

12/This is happening due to two forces:

1. Growth, which grows the pie

2. Redistribution, which makes sure everyone can have some pie.

— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) November 13, 2017

13/In Latin America, for example, redistribution is making a big dent in inequality (not just absolute poverty): https://t.co/sx8E9DF0Rh

— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) November 13, 2017

14/Decolonization and global growth have turned a 2-peaked global income distribution into a 1-peaked distribution. Here's 1988 vs. 2011. pic.twitter.com/ejNERYS4KS

— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) November 13, 2017

15/So socialists are wrong to think material deprivation has increased. It has fallen, and is still falling.

But they're falling because of redistribution and the end of colonialism.

— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) November 13, 2017

16/In other words, socialists are wrong to think that the world has gotten worse, and they're also wrong to think that free-market capitalism and colonialism have dominated the world in recent decades.

— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) November 13, 2017

17/In large part, we've done what many socialists wanted - ended colonialism and increased redistribution - and the results have been great.

— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) November 13, 2017

18/Obviously the world still has plenty of economic problems.

But globally, and even in America, our approach isn't failing. It's just not working as fast as we'd like.

(end)

— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) November 13, 2017