This has been written about [elsewhere][lf], but I can’t let such a perfect example of the fundamental innumeracy of so many political pundits pass me by without commenting.
\nCaptain Ed of [Captains Quarters][cq] complains about a speech by John Edwards in which Edwards mentions 37 million people below the poverty line:
\n>Let’s talk about poverty. Where did John Edwards get his numbers? The US Census
\n>Bureau has a ready table on poverty and near-poverty, and the number 37 million
\n>has no relation to those below the poverty line. If his basis is worry, well,
\n>that tells us nothing; what parent doesn’t worry about putting food on the
\n>table and clothes on the children, except for rich personal-injury attorneys?
\n>That threshold is meaningless.
\nNow, let’s look at the very figures that our brilliant captain links to:<\/p>\n
\nTable 6. People Below 125 Percent of Poverty Level and the Near Poor:\n1959 to 2004\n(Numbers in Thousands)\n____________________________________________________________\nBelow 1.25 Between 1.00 - 1.25\n____________________ ____________________\nYear Total Number Percent Number Percent\n____________________________________________________________\n2004..... 290,605 49,666 17.1 12,669 4.4\n<\/pre>\nOk… So, approximately 50 million people below 1.25 * the poverty line… And approximately 13 million people above the poverty line, but below 1.25 times it…
\nNow, What kind of brilliant mathematician does it take to figure out how many people are below the poverty line from this table? What kind of sophisticated math do we need to use to figure it out? College calculus? No. High school algebra? No. 3rd grade subtraction? There we are.
\n50 – 13 = ?
\nMy daughter, who is in *kindergarten* can do this using her *fingers*. But apparently math like this is completely beyond our Captain. (As much as I hate to admit it, this isn’t a phenomenon of people on the political right being innumerate; this kind of innumeracy is widespread on both ends of the political spectrum.)
\n[lf]: http:\/\/lawandpolitics.blogspot.com\/2006_07_01_lawandpolitics_archive.html#115250909380587878
\n[cq]: http:\/\/www.captainsquartersblog.com\/mt\/archives\/007436.php<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This has been written about [elsewhere][lf], but I can’t let such a perfect example of the fundamental innumeracy of so many political pundits pass me by without commenting. Captain Ed of [Captains Quarters][cq] complains about a speech by John Edwards in which Edwards mentions 37 million people below the poverty line: >Let’s talk about poverty. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4lzZS-16","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}