Aid to the Poor Did Not Grow Relative to GDP

Thomas Edsall had an interesting piece in the NYT that discussed the shift of aid to the poor from people who are very poor, unmarried, and non-working to the near poor, married, and working. At one point the piece refers to a comment from economist Robert Moffitt that spending on poverty programs increased by 74 percent from 1975 to 2007, after adjusting for inflation. This may have led readers to believe there was an increasing commitment to combat poverty over this period. In fact, since G...