November 18, 2013
The Washington Post thinks it’s always a good time to beat up seniors. It continually complains that overly generous Social Security and Medicare benefits are the country’s biggest problem. It never lets facts stand in the way.
Its latest attack tells readers that money going to seniors somehow comes at the expense of money for our kids. This is a loony tune invention of the Fox on 15th Street gang. In the real world, countries that spend a larger share of their GDP on seniors also spend a larger share on their kids.
Then the piece tells us:
“the poverty rate among the elderly is 9.1 percent, lower than the national rate of 15 percent — and much lower than the 21.8 percent rate among children.”
That’s nice, but the Census Bureau’s supplemental poverty measure, which is a more comprehensive assessment of poverty, shows a far smaller gap with a poverty rate for seniors of 14.8 percent compared with a poverty rate of 18.0 percent for children.
However, the greatest absurdity of the Post’s crusade is that its obsession with austerity and budget deficits is denying income to both the young and old, depriving the country of close to $1 trillion a year (@$3,000 per person) in lost output, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Note: Typos corrected, thanks Robert.
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