We ARE importing our poverty – immigration does not make people poorer (actually it makes people richer – the poor immigrants come here to escape poverty, and over time most of them in fact do). But importing, legally and illegally combined, 1 million poor, uneducated, unskilled people per year, does increase the number of poor people within our borders. Importing 350,000 poor households per year also, though to a lower extent, drags down the median income, because the statistical middle household is 175,000 households lower than it otherwise would be. We import rich people too – but only at about the same rate at which we export them.

The only retort to Samuelson’s statistical analysis that I’ve read is that the poverty rate among US Latinos has declined over time. But that’s not a retort – it just means that the poor Latinos who come here also move up over time – - right, that’s why they come. It would have to be the case that the poor people who come here move up eventually, given that the rate at which poor people come here is over 4 times the rate at which the total number of poor people increases.

There are valid points to be made on all sides of the immigration issue – but that’s beside the point. The point is with respect to the naysayers about the economy, the folks who say it’s great for Wall Street but lousy for Main Street, the folks who decry the growing “income gap” and the persistence of poverty.

An analogy would be a school district in which there previously wasn’t a kindergarten and then one was added. The median height would decline – even though nobody shrank. The gap between the tallest and shortest would increase – even though nobody shrank and everyone grew at the same rate they had previously. There would be more short kids – because there was a new class of kindergarteners.

We have the Paul Krugmans and Robert Reichs of the world telling us that people are actually getting shorter and we have the New York Times and Boston Globe printing it.

I’m pretty sure the poverty rate includes all cash transfers. It omits food stamps and subsidized housing.

Income included is actually “family” income, which may be even considerably less than household income. For example, income of two housemates are considered separately.

Definition of poverty

But it is good for you and Samuelson to explicitly spell this out–something that many of us instinctively suspect when these figures are trotted out. Thanks for trying to keep the media and politicians honest.