alt Hacker News> Make billionaires richer, make the middle class poor. Make the poor destitute. Make the destitute dead. (All USAID cuts)
How do you square this thought with the actual rate of poverty being on a steady downward trend while billionaires do their things?
Kindly use the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) - which accounts for government benefits (e.g., tax credits, SNAP), taxes, and expenses like medical costs.
This does not show your "steady downward trend", but has considerably fluctuated over the last few years. It is an increase to 12.9% in 2024, compared to 7.1% in 2020-21. Will need to wait till end of 2026 for the 2025 computation.