MSNBC's Touré Neblett, who recently condoned consumers lying to corporations like Amazon to get discounts to which they aren't entitled, really needs to stay away from Twitter — or have someone screen his tweets.
On Tuesday, he tweeted (HT Twitchy) that "Many in poverty are working poor w two jobs. So 'jobs' is an ineffective anti poverty program." Note that he didn't indicate that "jobs" might not be the whole answer, which in some instances may be the case. He instead asserted that the idea of creating jobs and encouraging poor people to get them is "ineffective" as a way to get them out of poverty.
Of course, Touré's premise is flawed. Relatively few who are in poverty are full-time workers.
The 2011 version of the "Profile of the Working Poor" report from the government's Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us in its opening sentence that:
Among persons in the labor force for 27 weeks or more, 4.2 percent of those usually employed full time were classified as working poor, compared with 14.4 percent of part-time workers.
So working full-time more than half of a year at any job gives you a 95.8 percent chance of not being in federally-defined poverty. Obviously, that percentage would increase a bit if those working 27-51 weeks were excluded.
96 percent-plus poverty avoidance is far from "ineffective," Touré – and that's even without addressing your "multiple jobs" claim. Surely those who work multiple jobs, or households where more than one person is employed, also have very low poverty rates.
The "ineffective" element of the jobs equation involves those who are only working part-time, many of whom can only find part-time work.
As I noted elsewhere yesterday, under the administration run by the guy Touré recently called "Santa Claus" (links are in original):
... full-time employment, still almost 4.6 million shy of it pre-recession peak, has been stuck at barely 47 percent of the adult population for four years — down from 52 percent when the recession began.
Employers are choosing to go with heavier mix of part-time workers largely because of "Santa Claus" Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, which is definitely an example of an "ineffective" overall anti-poverty program.
Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.
