Trillions of Dollars to Help the Poor?

The NYT had an interesting piece on the persistence of poverty in eastern Kentucky and rural areas more generally. However the piece is seriously misleading when it refers to "the trillions of dollars spent to improve the state of the poor in the United States and promote development." This comment would likely lead readers to believe that we are spending large amounts of money on anti-poverty programs. That is a very questionable claim.

Current spending on TANF, the main federal anti-poverty...