"In August 2005, the U.S. Census bureau reported that for the past four years, the poverty rate in the United States has been increasing. This is a marked reversal of an annual trend from 1993 to 2000 when poverty was declining.

According to the Census Bureau, the poverty rate rose from 12.5 percent in 20(13 to 12.7 percent in 2004. The Black poverty rate - 24.7 percent - is almost twice that of the general population. About 9.4 million African Americans, almost one-in-four, lived below the poverty line in 2004. That figure includes an increase of more than 1.4 million Black people (equivalent to the entire population of Phoenix, Ariz.) who have slipped into poverty since 2000.

Most Americans are oblivious to the plight of the poor. But shortly after the Census Bureau released the above figures, extended coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina brought the challenges the population faces into sharp relief. Television screens in homes across the country put a face on poverty statistics that was hard to ignore - the poor are disproportionately Black, women and children.

While most Americans were alarmed to learn how precarious life is for poor people, conservative pundits like George Will dismissed poverty as simply the result of too many Black babies and too many irresponsible Black men. That cold assessment ignores the Census Bureau report, and does not help Americans understand the real problems facing America's poor, many of whom get up and go to work everyday.

Defining Poverty

There are several elements to understanding the poverty problem. First, is the definition of poverty. The official poverty line refers to annual cash income, ignoring noncash federal assistance such as housing subsidies and food stamps for example. But it is also a pre-tax figure, so it ignores cash income from the Earned Income Tax Credit that some working families with children are eligible to receive.

The poverty line was originally developed by Mollie Orshansky, an economist working for the Social Security Administration. Using data from the Department of Agriculture, she established the cost of the Department of Agriculture's recommended basic minimum basket of food typical for the budget of low-income families. She then used data on middle-income families to estimate that families spent roughly one-third their income on food. Thus, multiplying the cost of the lowincome food basket by three gave her a measure of income needed to provide a basic diet. Her article was published in July 1963, and she revised her measure for a 1965 article.

Because her work coincided with the passage of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, President Johnson's "War on Poverty" adopted it to establish the working numbers for the anti-poverty measures of the Office of Economic Opportunity. Since then, that basic number has been updated to reflect general increases in inflation.

For 2004, the poverty level for a single head of household, over the age of 65 was $9,060 a year; for a family of three, with two children it was $15,219; while for a family of four with two children, it was $19,157.

Who is Poor?

Thirty-seven million Americans are living in poverty. In 2004, 13 million American children lived below the poverty line, roughly three-in-seventeen. Their ranks had swelled by nearly 200,000 from 2003, or roughly 3,000 more children falling into poverty each week.

Among African Americans, the highest poverty rates occur in families headed by single women, and people in those families make up 58 percent of all poor African Americans. Not surprisingly, by age group, the highest poverty rates occur for African American children - those under 18, and they make up 43 percent of all poor African Americans. African American seniors, those 65 and older, have a poverty rate of 23.8 percent.

In contrast to African Americans, people living in families headed by single women account for 34 percent of poor Hispanics, and 24 percent of poor Whites. Hispanic children account for 45 percent of poor Hispanics, while White children make up 27 percent of poor Whites.

In the nation as a whole, children make up 35 percent of the poor, and people in families headed by single women make up 35 percent of the poor. While African American children make up 17 percent of American children, they are 31 percent of all poor children, as are Hispanic children.

Again, the similar position of African American children in poverty to Hispanic children in poverty, despite a smaller share of Hispanic families headed by single women suggests that poverty is more complicated than family structure.

Policies Matter

The conservative argument, that poverty is the result of individual choices - mostly bad choices - looks at poverty as a "micro"-level phenomena. A competing view is to look at the dynamics of income trends, which would be a "macro"-level view, that poverty is the result of economy-wide forces and public policy.

In 1959, 55.1 percent of African Americans lived below the poverty line. By 1969, after passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Black poverty rate fell to 32.2 percent.

Then from 1969 to 1993 the poverty rate for African Americans remained virtually flat. It rose from a low of 30.3 percent in 1974 to 35.7 percent in 1983, to a low of 30.7 percent in 1989, back to 33.4 percent by 1992, following the growing and contracting economy. The poverty rate for African Americans then dropped annually from 1993 until 2000.

Why did Black poverty fall so dramatically during the 1960s and again in the 1990s, but remain essentially unchanged in the 1970s and 1980s? Were Black folk simply more energetic in the 1960s and 1990s, and lacking in initiative in the 1970s and 1980s?

In 1967, when the poverty rate among Black families stood at 33.9 percent, of all Black families only 27.7 percent were headed by single women. In 2000, when a record low 19.3 percent of Black families were below the poverty line, 43.3 percent of Black families were headed by single women. Clearly, more is at issue than George Will's simple answer of family structure.

At its root, poverty is a lack of income. People fall below the poverty line because they do not have enough money. They can be constrained because even though they are working, they do not earn enough money - low wages. Indeed, in 2004, one-in-10 African Americans over 16 who were poor, worked full-time all year, and one-in-three worked at least a part of the year.

Or they can be constrained because, even though they may earn decent wages, they cannot work enough hours - high unemployment. High unemployment rates plague the African American community, limiting the annual income of Black families.

From January 1980 to June 1988, the monthly unemployment rate for adult African American men remained above 10 percent, and not until December 1994 did it dip below 9.1 percent. The highest recorded monthly unemployment rate for White men occurred during November and December 1982, when it was 9 percent both months (in those two months Black men had unemployment rates of 19.3 and 20.7 percent).

From 1980 to 1994, when Black men suffered from monthly double-digit unemployment rates, the median income for African American men remained below the poverty line for a family of four - that is, half the Black men in America did not cam enough in those years to keep a family of four out of poverty.

Overall, however, men make substantially more than women. This is true for African Americans as well. In the 1960s, median annual income for Black women averaged 41 percent of median income for Black men. Each decade, the relative earnings of Black women to Black men have drifted up, so by the 1990s it averaged 69 percent of Black men's income. Finally, by 2000, median earnings for African American women climbed above the poverty line for a family of four - that is, not until 2000, did half the Black women in America earn enough to keep a family of four out of poverty. So while the share of Black families headed by single women increased, the earnings of Black women also increased, and the overall Black family poverty levels fell relative to the levels in the 1970s and 1980s.

Understanding Unemployment

Experts do not agree on an explanation for the persistence of the high unemployment rate for African Americans. Some experts, like Harry Holzer of Georgetown University, believe the issue is related to poor job networks, lack of skills, and that African Americans, compared with Whites, live in neighborhoods with fewer job opportunities. The Brookings Institution has shown that this is a fitting description of New Orleans, where poor Blacks were highly concentrated in neighborhoods with other poor people.

But broader forces can act even on such isolation. Michael Stoll of the University of California at Los Angeles has shown that while Black isolation from economic growth declined slightly during the 1990s as more Blacks moved to the suburbs, the dramatic drop in Black unemployment rates occurred more because of drops of unemployment rates everywhere.

Still, African Americans have higher unemployment rates than Whites in the suburbs, as they do in urban areas. And the unemployment rates for African Americans at every education level are much higher than for Whites with the same education. In addition, Leslie Stratton of Virginia Commonwealth University, and other researchers, find that less than half the gap in unemployment rates for men is explained by factors such age and schooling.

From a national policy perspective, there is a general consensus that African Americans are affected more than other groups by efforts of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors to manipulate the national economy. When the Federal Reserve believes the economy is growing too fast, and may lurch into spiraling inflation, or when the Fed is concerned that asset prices are out of balance, as with the stock market "bubble" of 2000, it may act to slow the economy.

Its primary tool is to manipulate what is called the Federal Funds Rate. This is the interest rate that banks are charged to borrow money. Raising the rate slows the demand for money from banks and so slows their lending activity, which in turn slows business expansion, and so slows the economy. The result is that the economy creates fewer jobs. And in the real world, where the Fed's theory meets reality, it often means unemployment grows.

This all occurs with some lag, but roughly 20 months after the Fed acts, the economy responds. And that means that unemployment for African Americans, in particular, increases.

How the President and Congress respond to economic downturns also affects the distribution of the benefits of economic growth. The two great drops in African American poverty rates occurred during the administrations of Presidents Kennedy and Johnson and again under President Clinton. The stagnation of African American poverty rates occurred under Presidents Nixon and Ford and again under Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush. In fact, during the administrations of both President George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, the African American poverty rate has increased annually. This is more than coincidence. Issues like the minimum wage, affirmative action, urban development expenditures and tax policy all matter.

The Baby Mama Myth

The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina brought out many conservative pundits who saw the face of poverty as Black women with too many babies. This stereotype doesn't stand up for several reasons. First of all, the Hispanic and the African American poverty rates are virtually equal, and have similar resulting high poverty rates for Hispanic and African American children, yet Hispanic families have a much lower share of single women heading families. And, as noted earlier, the poverty rate for African Americans was much higher in the 1960s, when a much lower share of families were headed by single women.

The original conservative line was that the 1960s "War on Poverty" had created a monster. Black women, in particular, lured by welfare payments had babies out-of-wedlock and grew dependent on the federal dole rather than work. Such ranting finally led to a massive overhaul of the welfare system in 1996, that replaced a federal entitlement with a block grant to states. The bulk of the money in the program shifted from income support directly to recipients, to state programs to encourage work by low-income women. The number of women receiving welfare dropped sharply and, at the same time, the official poverty numbers fell. Conservatives declared victory and vindication. Only now that job creation has slowed down, and poverty has continued to climb, the whole picture becomes more complex.

The key statistic bandied about in this poverty argument is the share of Black children born out-of-wedlock. Poverty numbers are not kept on the basis of children born out-of-wedlock, but on the basis of family structure - whether the family is a married couple or has a single head of household. So there isn't a direct link between the out-of-wedlock births and poverty data, just the indirect link to families headed by single women (which includes those never married, but also those who are divorced, separated or widowed).

Nonetheless, understanding the share of Black babies born out-of-wedlock is not so simple, nor is understanding why the number changes. A fraction can increase either because the numerator gets bigger - that is, the birth rate of unmarried women goes up, or the denominator shrinks - that is, the birth rate of Black women goes down, particularly for Black married women. This is why the change in the share of Black children born out-of-wedlock is complicated.

In the 1960s, because of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, new opportunities became available to Black women and they greatly increased their educational attainment. In 1964, among African American women ages 25 to 29, 47.9 percent had completed high school, and 3.9 percent had completed college. By 1976, high school completion increased to 74.9 percent, and college completion more than tripled to 13.6 percent. This meant several things. It meant that Black women started delaying marriage to get more education, resulting in a decline in the number of married Black women and an increase in the number of unmarried Black women. It also meant that married Black women started having babies later, which meant that married Black women dramatically reduced their birth rate.

So while the birth rate of unmarried Black women was falling, births to married women fell faster. Except for the brief period from 1984 to 1993 when the birth rate of unmarried Black women was increasing, the share of out-of-wedlock births has been growing because of the decline in the number of married Black women and in the birth rate of married Black women. In fact, the fertility rate for Black women, ages 15 to 44 is now nearly equal to that for White women - a dramatic change from as recently as 1991, when the Black fertility rate was nearly one-third larger than for White women.

Black poverty today is lower than it was in the 1960s despite a higher share of families headed by single women because the earnings of Black women have risen so dramatically. This is not surprising since poverty results from low income, the poverty rate for Hispanics would similarly fall if the earnings of married Hispanic families went up.

The problem faced by families with a single parent head of household is that the prime income-earner is constrained in the labor market - facing problems of child care, they are not free to work as many hours as they may want to work. This is overcome by male-headed households, at least as far as avoiding poverty, because men make more money than women. Thus, the emphasis on the share of babies born out-of-wedlock diverts attention from the disparity in pay between men and women, and the paradox that a rapid increase in African American women "doing the right thing" by getting more education and delaying marriage would, all else equal, actually increase the share of babies born out-of-wedlock.

Are Black Leaders Responsible?

The large number of cities since the 1960s that are now run by Black mayors, and the growth of the Congressional Black Caucus have pushed African Americans into leadership and policymaking positions. Some opinion makers believe that Black leadership, no longer on the outside but sitting in the corridors of power, has failed poor African Americans.

This critique is probably too harsh. In the 1960s median family incomes and the wages of workers in the middle were rising at record rates. Fighting for affirmative action to help African Americans who were locked out, was a major accomplishment. But since about 1980, income inequality in the United States has grown rapidly. Median family incomes have been stalled, and wages for workers in the middle are stagnant. Almost all growth in the economy has gone to those in the top 10 percent, far removed from the poverty line.

Simply being on board will not get those on the bottom to safety.

Most economists agree that the rise in income inequality and the difficulty faced for middle- and low-income workers comes from increased international competition for labor, and an undoing of wage-setting institutions in the United States. Low-wage workers have also been hurt by a stagnant minimum wage, and changes in federal attitudes about unions that have led to the defeat of union organizing drives and a decline in the share of workers covered by unions.

Further, technological advances have significantly reduced the need for manufacturing workers. To a lesser extent, changes in U.S. trade policy have made the United States the largest importing country of manufactured goods from low-wage countries. This tide of changes and policies are decided at the federal level, well above the decision-making nexus of mayors. And the Congressional Black Caucus is not large enough to dictate federal policy on trade or the minimum wage.

In recent years, Black leaders have fought to strengthen Social Security, pass pay equity legislation, shore up the Community- Reinvestment Act, preserve the Earned Income Tax Credit, raise the minimum wage and for fair, affordable housing.

Meanwhile, African American leaders have not done so well at educating African Americans on the broader set of economic policies that affect the general wage, income and employment level, either.

When there are openings to be filled in key economic policy positions, like the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers for the President, chair of the Federal Reserve Board, or Secretary of Treasury, less attention is focused than when the Attorney General is chosen.

Time to Act

A 2004 study by the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at the University of Connecticut noted that Americans "would like to think no one has to be poor in America today," and yet we are "not terribly optimistic that poverty in the U.S. can ever be eliminated."

According to a recent poll, the dramatic images from Hurricane Katrina have altered this view. A New America Media poll conducted in October 2005 found that "eliminating poverty in this country" was more important to respondents than "fighting terrorism," "establishing democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan" and rebuilding regions devastated by Katrina and other natural disasters.

According to the poll, the majority of respondents, African Americans, Hispanics, Asians and non-Hispanic Whites, believe, "It is a disgrace that there are millions of very poor people in the United States and government should do everything in its power to eliminate poverty."

Hurricane Katrina can put America at a new crossroads for discussing race and poverty. Let us see how African American leaders, and the U.S. government respond. When the Titanic sank, people lost their lives, for the most part, not because of hitting the iceberg, but because there were not enough life boats. Those in steerage, the low-income passengers, were condemned by a failure to plan for their safety. Hurricane Katrina showed us the same fault lines. People did not die because of the hurricane, they died because we did not have enough life boats." (William E. Spriggs, The Crisis, Jan/Feb 2006)

William E. Spriggs is chair of the economics department at Howard University.