6 million over the last two years. The number of people in poverty decreased from 2015. Adults 65 and older are the only group to see an increase. Poverty, theo u. S. Rates were under 10 representing about one million families, declined from 10. 5 or 8. 6 million families in 2018. Robert rector, what do these numbers tell you. Tell you in regards to poverty . They are misleading. You have to understand the welfare state is not counted in these numbers. Example, last year we spent about 360 billion for writing cache food and housing to lowincome houses with children, twice the amount needed to raise every Single Family out of poverty, but when the senses goes to count if the family is poor, it excludes almost every single time of welfare spending. If you count the welfare state, what you find this rather than having 40 Million People in poverty, it is closer to Something Like 17 million or 18 million. It cuts it in half, and that is a good thing, but we need to be honest and we need to avoid false narrative where we say, you get the people we have in poverty, we need more welfare to cure that, when in fact our numbers ever count the welfare state in the first place. This that mean we ought to add Welfare Benefits . No. When Lyndon Johnson spent 28 trillion on that war notoverty, he said he did we could cure poverty just by giving everybody enough welfare in order to raise incomes above the poverty threshold but that would be wrong. He said quote we want to do is make people selfsufficient and less dependent on government but able to support themselves through their own work and effort, the original goal. By those standards, we have been badly. There has been little reduction in what i call prewelfare 19 70s ande the that is what we ought to focus. It does not mean we want to get rid of the welfare. It can be effective and raise Living Standards but it is not the ultimate goal to get more benefits. Host olivia golden, is this as he put it a false narrative . No. I think robert said that before but it is less this year because the Census Bureau does a supplemental poverty measure and supplemented measure, which includes an array of Public Programs and the regular poverty measure. They show the same news you describe, which is good news in 2016 for americans on all economic levels. Reports showed improvement so that the overall poverty rate came down and the rate for children came down to about 18 . News, there is good news whichever way you measure it. I think what we see in the numbers is that while it is good 2007, ibe back, about think your summary said we are better than the recession, that is not true, we are about the same as before the recession. Do and theot more to risk in 2017 and beyond is many of the things the senses numbers show successfully reduce poverty over the years are at risk this year, including the senses does calculations of contributions of public policy, the Affordable Care act to improved Health Insurance, nutrition systems on poverty and the better economy and the elbows things are at risk because of decisions in 2017. What i would highlight is it is good news. Americans should be proud of what we accomplished in 2016 but we are putting it at risk in 2017 through some discussions and decisions about the budget, core programs, and so forth, that could turn that around and make poverty worse. Will be with us the next 45 minutes and we are dividing phone lines as the following, if your income is under 40,000 a year, call 202 7488000. For those in the medium range between 40,000 and 75,000 a year, 202 7488001. If your income is about 75,000 a year, call 202 7488002. Robert rector, i will share this graph from the Census Bureau, which shows a drop in poverty from 1959 to over 22 and dropped significantly in the early 1970s. You can see the increase is results of the recession of the 1980s and 1990s, now hovering in the teens. What does this tell you . That is a prewelfare poverty graph. It does not have the welfare state in their. In there. If you go back to 1950, 1 third of the u. S. Population was poor to 60 drops to 50 because of steady wage growth for most coworkers, as well as strong, intact marriages that were at 90 of families where kids are married during this time, so wage growth plus a strong marriage cuts it in half. There is virtually no welfare during that time. When we began the war on poverty, and we have welfare programs that discourage people from working, and we have welfare programs that penalize couples for getting married. As a result, we go from one in 10 families not being married to Something Like 33 today. That closes that pulls the poverty rate up and we have people dropping out of the labor force and we have had low wage with 40 of the population of workers since the 1970s. Those are the things we have to deal with, decline in marriage and static wages in order to make people more selfsufficient. If i can say one other thing about this false narrative, we now have a double walls narrative. In the first place, we do not count to Welfare Benefits and when miss golden says we do, she raises the poverty threshold simultaneously. Thell count welfare, but income levels better poor, i will bring them up by one third. As results, theres no decrease in poverty. It is to false narratives. First, we do not count welfare and that we have a moving standard much higher than the conventional standard so the taxpayer can never win because we have one set of that numbers after another. Welfare does reduce poverty, it cuts it in half. It is a good thing. On the other hand, what we need to do is deal with the root causes of why people need welfare in the first place, why they are not selfsufficient and able to rise above poverty on their own efforts. Host lets begin our caller. Walter from baltimore. Good morning. Caller good morning, cspan. Good morning to your guests. Even though i am opposed to the Heritage Foundation of the conservative view of life, the idea that the conservatives are against minimum wage, health care, anything progressive, that they can to answer the question, what about i beg him to answer the question, what about the military Industrial Complex . Would you consider would you continue to consider that . People at the Heritage Foundation, stop hating the poor. And hit the poor, when the poor will be with you forever . Host walter, thanks for the call. Lets begin with olivia golden. Guest thank you, walter. I went to pull out one thing that we all agree on, which is the low of low wages. He talked about stagnant wage group, and what i want to highlight is that when you look at the poverty numbers that the that theeau does Census Bureau does and the calculate both ways, you see Public Programs that had an important effect, Social Security, income tax credits, but also the central role at work. One of the reasons already got better in 2016 is the recovery from the recession finally reached lowwage families. Working, and are the reason we still have almost one in five children poor is because their parents are working, 75 of children live in a family of working parents, but their wages or hours are not sufficient. We have had a labor market that has too many intermittent, temporary jobs, the senses therts that share people senses reports that share people are working parttime when they went to work fulltime, so what we need to do to continue the progress and do better, where we do not have one in five children and a large number of Young Children with a rate of almost 20 , to be in a world where they are not getting that start in poverty. We need to support the core Public Programs and also these minimum wages, enforcement of labor protections, and not destabilize families. The abilitycinding of young people who got the ability to work under the daca program, which destabilizes their families. We need to enforce labor andections, the about jobs good wages and think about Public Programs. When you look at the good news in the report, it shows we know what works and we need to continue it and not throw it away. Host the caller addressed heritage and the pentagon budget. Clarify, lastt to year, we spent 1. 1 trillion on welfare assistance providing cash for low and poor income americans, not including Social Security or medicare. Since the beginning of the war on poverty under Lyndon Johnson, we have spent 28 trillion on the war in poverty, four times, more than four times the cost of all the course in u. S. History but he mentioned the minimum wage. I think this is an important point. It is important to have honest statistics. If a single mother was working with two kids, fulltime all year, she only makes about your 2000 a year. She is really poor. That sounds she only makes about 14,000 a year. She is poor. That sounds awful. Each one would get at least 10,000 from programs called the credit, foodx credits, and that brings her 24,000 and she now has Economic Resources in the mid30s. If she has Public Housing and moves into the high 40s, so the reality is that even though mother working fulltime at minimum wage, we have a generous system of supplementing wages by adding 10,000 on top to bring her about poverty. That is a policy i support, but we have to be honest. We have to acknowledge that assistance is there and it reduces poverty. Do not play numbers games that as soon as you count 10,000, you shift the poverty income thresholds up by the same amount so theres no impact. That is a game the left plays to con the taxpayer, no matter how much you spend under their games, you never have effect on poverty. That is not fair and not a good way to set up policy. Carriedis program is live on cspan radio. We want to reproduce our guests, if you are listening, olivia golden is the executive director of the center for law and social policy, and Robert Rector, a domestic policy Senior Research fellow at the Heritage Foundation here in washington. Based on income, we divide the phone lens. Rick is next on the line for under 40,000 a year. Good morning. Caller i believe Health Insurance was included, is that correct . Guest yes, it was. Caller soy have one on health , so what on tax reads do think about in optional loan for either the high deductible insurance or direct care because a loan with increase price consciousness, which would lower inflation, increase access, and second one is we spend 6 trillion a year for federal, state and local spending, according to the dea. If just 15 is wasted, which is a conservative number, that is 900. Help 900 in dollars. How much poverty is created by billionte 900 dollars. How much poverty is created by that waste . Guest one of the excesses the report highlights is the. Xpansion of Health Insurance some are down to about a point in percent and that is because of the Affordable Care act and the expansion of medicaid. The report shows that the states that have chosen to reach more low income people to medicaid cap brought the lack of insurance down greatly. I think what we have seen during this year, i said there is a risk of ignoring what we learned that works, congress has been trying to appeal the Affordable Care act. Did not succeed is that so many people told their stories of how crucial Health Insurance is, for old, a young, parents, people of color, white people, people with disabilities. I think making sure that everybody gets access to Health Insurance is really important and where americans are now. Your specific idea about loans, i do not know the technical of how that would work. What i would say is that they step, which we know from the data we have, are the remaining states that do not help people the way they should do that. On government spending, i would majority of the domestic spending of pieces we talk about here go directly to the people who need help, like help with purchasing food, health care, we have all been seeing Disaster Relief and so most of the, studies that have been done uput waste and fraud come with tiny numbers, nowhere near what you described, a small fraction of 1 . I would say we need to do things well, we need to take the evidence in the census report about what has been working. For example, nutrition assistance, tax credits robert described, just brought 8 Million People out of poverty. We need to take what works and apply it and not throw it away. Host to be clear on the threshold with regard to poverty according to the Census Bureau, as defined by the office of budget, and using the Consumer Price index, a family of four special poverty was an income of over 24,000 a year. Thats go to ted in New Hampshire. Caller good morning. Good morning. I have a question i would like to address. My girlfriend has been dealing with this cancer, with breast and her, her daughter and the three small children, they were a dictated they apartmented from an in manchester and they moved to attend in the state park. In these conditions, they did at some help them removed to motel, but those are temporary. She has worked for the hours, because of her illness, she has had to cut down to 20. And the housing is the problem that was finding. There is no place to go she can afford because it is different in New Hampshire then it is in massachusetts, which seems to have more benefits. She has a deadline of today would they will be back in a tent again, and trying their darndest to stay out. She works hard time but in the near future may not be able to work at all because of her condition. Host thank you. You are shaking your head. Guest a couple of things, thank you for sharing that story, which im sure was painful to talk about but it illustrates lots of things they seem people in poverty. She is working parttime, wishes she could work fulltime, dealing with a medical condition, housing, and children. In terms of immediate help, i could suggest looking for Legal Services in New Hampshire to see if they could help. One of the two things i would pull out of your story for really one, health care matters. It sounds as though because you live in a state that has expanded Health Insurance, she has been able to get treatment, forhousing is a big gap lowincome families, and it is one of the areas that, unfortunately, congress has talked about targeting for cuts rather than increases. It can depend on the luck of the draw and where you live. Other areas, i do not know if they affected, but other big include childcare and good luck, and there went to underline that her circumstance is her work. Children, her young her, and her difficulty with housing a Common Threads for lowincome people today. Host olivia is a very s go up important thing. The problem is that for the low ncome part of the population, wages havent gone up for about 30 or 40 years. That we n for that is continue to bring in lowskill mmigrant labor, both legally and illegally to push wages down. 10 million Illegal Immigrants over half of whom have a High School Degree in the labor force. Many, many more legal immigrants, who are pushing wages down. You u want wages to go up, cant have our least advantaged orkers competing with essentially unlimited in flow of competitive works from abroad. Go back to an y, earlier caller talking about fraud. O say there is no fraud in the welfare system is completely fraudulent. In the earned income tax credit, that costs about 80 billion, our second largest cash of the spending in that program is fraudulent, based on misreporting of benefits go to10 individuals who dont have a relevant child in their home. Do is remove o that fraud, which we can do and more nel that money into effective programs that support work in marriage. No fraud in is programs like housing or food stamps, its because those programs, unlike earned income ax credit, are really not audited. We dont know who is in the about hidden income, so forth there is massive fraud in medicaid, food earned income tax credit. The earned income tax credit we know about because the i. R. S. It well. Again, this doesnt mean they do away with the programs, but it we need actual measures to reveal the fraud is rid televisionet and rechannel the programs so they are more effective in terms of promoting work in marriage because were on a welfare ystem that instead of penalizing work in marriage and isplacing work in marriage, which current welfare system does, brings the best efforts of the individual and the welfare help people er to rise up out of poverty. Our Current System fails very, respect. Y in that host let me correct something, you, e the schools call on Robert Rector is graduate of ohns hopkins and olivia golden earned her degree from harvard university. On ant to make sure were the record with that. Joe in gardner, massachusetts, waiting. For caller good morning. Since were being honest, i point out that businesses are responsible for living wage to their employees. Taxpayers shouldnt be subsidizing the low pay that businesses are moment. T the so tot Robert Rector, you want respond . Guest what happens if you raise wage to 20 an hour . Workers lowskilled have jobs . Not very many. If you raise the minimum wage, you are knocking out least workers out of the work force, they will not be able to at that nd get jobs wage. This is crucial with regard to the primary poverty of the population, which is lowskilled, single mothers who by very badly affected minimum wage increases. What we have instead is a system now where we ay, okay, we have a minimum age that is 7. 25 an hour, if you are a apparent trying to support a family on that, we recognize you cant do that. Dont want to raise minimum wage rate and say you cant have because we price you out of the market, well come in and on lement wages by adding average 20,000 of Welfare Benefits on top of it. Of was a key element welfare reform, where youre trying to say what we need to do having people not working and on welfare, we want working, we want people married and if youre not able to get above poverty through mechanisms, supplement on top of that. That is humane system, what we acknowledge, that system works well, you have to count it. Kay, i explained earlier, single mother who is working full time at minimum wage, in about 30 above Poverty Level, even excluding be cal care, we need to honest that the taxpayers are that, a sacrifice to have but we wont be honest were oing to have a round after round of bogus numbers, where you try to create impressions of material depravation in order to generate more welfare spending. Guest to go back, joe, to your point, about business responsibility. Roberts point of view, minimum wage increase, would be bad, is with most conflict economic research, but also in conflict with the way voters of parties are moving around the country. Lots of movement on the fight on moving minimum wage up there is also and this is an ssue we care about, we work on a lot of class, there are lots around s around whether the hours that people work in low wage jobs, a big problem, fulltime work, even if you want it or get too few hours. Illustration of bipartisan nature of the point made about business responsibility, arizona is one states to pass both minimum wage increase and provision, way of making sure businesses are playing their role and want to, those that do right dont want other people to undercut them. Think about the report from the Census Bureau, it is Public Program that supplement low wage work and it is about maintaining and improving the quality of those provide and kel support a family. Host two other incomes, average 57,237. 2015 was to their 59,000 in 2016. Income up, poverty down, talking two guests. Margaret is next. Del ray beach, florida, good morning. Good morning. This is a very interesting conversation and thankfully is there to bring some sanity. I work in social services. With people, persons with disabilities. I think it is interesting that guest keeps talking around certain points. On the left one believes that more government, whether however inefficient incompetent the government provides services, more government is always the answer. Work directly with people with disabilities. Im going to give you two say, she never really responds to the core poverty exists and again, we never really get back to marriage and family and how directly impacts poverty. E also, she bleakly mentioned daca and im against big business importing cheap labor, census is a that the any kind of number that we should, the census includes country. In this i heard a person from the Census Bureau talking about the most ridiculous system on top of that, people with disabilities, american citizens in this no fault of ugh their own, were born or incurred disability, are on the bottom rung, they take a back seat to every illegal immigrant that reallyn here and what is specialing to me is the answer government. Talking about health care and businesses not being undercut, the affordablenk health care did to hours and peoples ability to get a fulltime job . Call it what it is. Xpand medicaid across the nation and say look what a wonderful, compassionate nation we are. Them a chance e to respond, talking about immigration, i want to share a the president m and then you can respond to margaret. The president tweeted, chain cannot be allowed to be part of any legislation on immigration. You. To share that with pack to margarets points. Guest let me answer a couple of points and try to talk about the research, as well as what weve learned. People tely agree that with disabilities, theyre overrepresented among low income poor peep and he will they deep health care is crucial to them, the speaking out of disabilities was a very important part of why so efforts te congress and president trumps efforts to repeal the Affordable Care act happened. t your perspective, which sounds as though it is Affordable Care people with lped disability is not widely shared. The ability through medicaid and parts of that to get health care enable people disabilities to live much fuller lives in a variety of ways. Think the other area where i say youve probably had an important experience with some of todays people in poverty is one of the primary kinds of low wage work today for many hardworking low income peep cell caring for people, seniors, ill, people with disabilities, children. I would just note, one of the we think about lowwage jobs is that auch today ere paying low wages for the jobs that are most important, people provide care in the home, fatherinlaws last years are the kind of people were talking about here raising kids and working a lot of hours. Of ink that the picture public support not helping is not what people with disabilities themselves have or what broader americans say. I guess what i would just say is thatmigrant families the broad majority of the highlights thech extraordinary contribution to the economy. E talk specifically, you mention specifically daca, in there i think the key point, it sense, agreed to by a wide range of americans, i think americans think this, it is only common sense for young people who came here as children, been here 10 years or more and want to be able to work, contribute to their are parents y raising children. Economic stability for those weve s, which is what had since president obama created, implemented daca in is good for american communities, for children, for make sured we need to that continues. Host allen watertown, you in e, response from a moment, good morning, earning year on this line. Caller thank you for taking my call. Mrs. Olivia golden, she seems to be doing a lot of research. I do research everyday, i hire fire employees and contractors and see people working here. Mexico, minimum wage ruse. Sation is a you cant get somebody to run a for more than 12 an hour. The idea folks are in poverty not include their illegal paying hat is someone them under the table. These folks, a lot of them know income they uch have to report to stay under the free stuff. Ll the in a general sense, you cannot state with open borders, it does not work. Robert rector. Guest you cannot have welfare state with open borders and that with Illegal Immigrants they cost taxpayers 60 billion price is nimum, and going up. The previous caller talked about the relationship between poverty and illegal immigration. In fact, one in 10 children by the censuspoor bureau is in fact an illegal child. Ant the reality is that these numbers are very misleading, what he has said is exactly what i was saying about earned income tax credit. The numbers are made up. Books earningshe and as consequence, you look at data such as nt consumption, what you see is when that poor people every year spend 2 for every dollar census is saying they are having. How did they do that . The dont count welfare in Census Bureau and dont count that off the books earnings. When you look at the 40 Million People that poor, is telling us are if you look at other government surveys about how these people you looklive, okay, if at poor familys with families, poor families according to 84 of poor families with children, according to screenent data have wide hd t. V. , 75 of them have a home, 72 of e them have a smartphone, 82 of internet connection, 0 of them have cable or satellite t. V. , 75 have air conditioning. Usda did, wasem as your child hungry one day in the no. R, 96 of them say on average, poor familys with housing that is in very Good Condition and larger than the average house in germany or great britain, not for poor people, but for the average german, frenchman, so forth and so on. A phone a sign of wealth or nesesity . All they had was electronic things, this wouldnt ean that much, the fact of the matter, they say they have enough food to eat, their own report. You hungry . M, were 85 of poor adults say, no, i a never hungry for even single day in the year. We looked at their housing, good housing is large, condition, they have cars, they have air conditioning, so forth and so on. The Living Standards are much higher because the whole notion f the way were measuring poverty because it excludes elfare, because it excludes informal income is just wrong, that is why every year, year after year, after year, poor are telling us they spend 1, the numbers are nonsense. Been so what robert has saying flies in the face of common sense and the experience talked about that his girlfriend and her kids, it flies in the face of research of kinds, for example, a couple recent books that tell he stories of poor families evicted, tells the story of a very large number of families, ncluding families with income above Poverty Level who cant afford housing, like the story devastatesd how that the 2 a day is a book that uses ly describes and broad dat to look at circumstances of children. Found and chers have the amount of information about inin inin ining g growing in the last few years, growing up poor has longterm effects for children and in some ways whether a family has a irrelevant to that, it is food that is is nses, stable housing, it stress of poverty and work and the way in which, single event people into crisis. Keeping a car operate suggest something expensive, child care expensive. So the consequences for families are vat and consequences for communities are very great. At research about what helps those children, some of access to health care helps, nutrition helps. Robert i think is misstating research about hung sxer Food Insecurity says, protect rk hard to their Young Children from being hungry. Almostally the number is down to where it was before the recession, i think something households lion report Food Insecurity and what that mean system they worried having enough food to make ends meet and keep food on the the past year, in general, adults try to protect children. Did a nstitute recently study that says actually it is probably worse than those umbers because people are ashamed to talk about either whether their kids are hungry or do. They teenagers skip meals to be able siblings. Ounger it is not a picture consistent either with reality of peoples or with what the evidence says. Host talking with olivia olden, executive director of the center for law and social policy and Robert Rector, who is Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Next caller from frank, bob, good morning. Caller good morning. Couple of things. Id like toing it mrs. Golden she ought to go back to her money ask for back, she got robbed of an education. Mr. Robert rector, you are brillia brilliant, your thought on were wage being zero, going in the wrong direction. I remember a few years ago, theyng by a mcdonalds and were paying more than minimum age and giving flat 100 bonus to anybody that would work there because they couldnt get any help. Go. T is the way we ought to guest i think having good Competitive Forces that pull wages up is a good thing, who has microeconomics understands if you bring in tens low skilled f workers to compete with american low skilled workers that pulls wages down. All you have to do is take an undergraduate course for that, it is ridiculous. Same thing with respect to minimum wage and least skilled workers. Wage look at minimum workers and minimum wage, you ee increases, it doesnt have any effect on things Like High School graduates or people that have been to college. At impact on peep theyll dropped out of high school, it effect ificant job loss for them. The least advantaged workers are slammed by it and im saying, im sitting here as wantrvative saying i dont to throw those people out of the labor force, they will be in bad shape. That we givee sure them enough wage supplementation rate. O well above poverty since minimum wage worker with two or three kids already, once Welfare Benefits has income in the mid to high 20s added in the are mid30s, why do we need to raise wet minimum wage level since already supplemented wages above that level . The risk of having her lose the job . The bottom line here, with all of all the depravations and everything, if food and housing, put medical care aside, cash, given d housing that is to low income families with sufficient to raise if you just gave it as cash to 200 of ery families to the Poverty Level, 50,000 for a how much four, that is money is going in here. How in the world can you spend money and still have all of these huge didpravations that exist. That would mean welfare state inefficient. He reality is most of the numbers are simply flimflam, to welfare state rather than to try to make existing welfare state more promoting work in married, truly compassionate thing. Creating bogus numbers, some in le in the u. S. Are material depravation, they are omeless, tiny fraction of the people that are allegedly poor. Most of the people that are poor the smartscreen t. V. , phones, ample food, have two have air conditioning, it is that is all a scam. E ought to focus on the people that really have material depravattion and try to make the system more efficient for them and make sure that the system promotes work in marriage not only will that help incomes go up, but those thing necessary and of themselves are people as opposed to welfare dependence which is harmful for children and harmful for adults. Host rudy in sun city, california, good morning. Good morning, steve. This is for robert. On welfare are black, not population, but recipients. 37. 9 of people on welfare are white, that is not population, that is recipients. Out cutell the people there, quit blaming Minority Community because of the welfare rate. When they call in and talk about welfare, they look at one part country. I like to get your opinion on that. Thank you. Host thank you, to olivia golden next. Guest so i think it is really important to highlight that when who hink about both people are poor and people who are getting help of various kinds, includes white people, black people, latino people, people of broadly, that is really important point to make. And i think that one of the that gets lost in this conversation and in the way disagree with the Census Bureau and all of the have done at people is that what youre talking peoplehen you talk about who get help is mostly working people. O not only are you absolutely right that people of all races earned p, need the income tax credit, need Social Security and medicare as they get older and may need help the table, but in addition, one of the big research, at in our black and latino families had, not to be inlikely the good jobs that will give them enough hours and enough wages, so i think youre absolutely right to say the are not about they are not about the failures seniors or or individuals who are black or who latino, they are about lowwage jobs, labor market and tis interesting to be the optimist here. Hat this report says, weve actually been to we were job up through 2016 better, g people get get nutrition, get health care, improvements on that score, improving work and in the labor market, but we have more and what were risking right now is throwing away those department of labor is sounding as though it is going to back away from paying of low n to the needs wage workers, were talking bout cutting the help that were offering, the goal of having people work, be secure nd be able to raise their family system one where we have good news, successes, we know back do it, we shouldnt off from those. Maryland, goodom morning. Caller good morning. I appreciate you taking my call. Way, i a different Practice Medicine in baltimore or 40 years and now im retired, in my 80s. I watch the poor and middle class progress, but one thing we of programs through the hospitals, health care rograms and we had a little slogan after we saw how grants were awarded. Conclusion that the democrats were wanted to reason i oor and the say this, a lot of the six to 8 30 raked off rs, the top as administrative cost administrativeen and higher paying jobs in the programs were not minorities, so what ties, that is happened, this is trickle down of dollars. Had the businessmen who came in were not of that race, who came foreigners and started and were selling food stamps and then you had building s coming in, up the housing and getting their oney, so a lot of that 8 trillion slowed right back to the upper class. Louis, thanks for the call. Robert, can you respond . Uest there is huge inefficiency and fraud in the welfare system, what we need to do rather than cut spending is make the programs efficient so they really help poor people. Three rules for getting out of poverty in the United States, one is not have a being married, to be married. The other to finish high school, the third is to get job and hang with it steady. If you do those three things, being poor are 2 per year. If you violate any of those rules, your odds of being poor astronomically. What we have is a welfare system that penalizes low income parent fist they do marry, it will take as much as 10 or 12,000 of away from them on marriage. We need to eliminate marriage welfare and have a system that rewards people for not working. Lot of poor people work, they dont work that much. I want to have better jobs for welfare also have a system that prods people toward work and that is work requirement. 90 of American Public believe an ablebodied adult who gets cash, food or housing from the federal government ought to prepare for work as condition of receiving aid, that welfare principle of reform years ago, applied to 1 programs. Welfare that principle has to be expanded more widely. Left are adamantly opposed and believe age should be given unconditionally whether or not or make any effort to obtain a job, that is it isle for the taxpayer, terrible for the poor. North atricia, ashboro, carolina. You are next. Is, i hello, my comment own a business here, have for 32 now. Asked for the d, most dying city in america a few years back. Ell, the city of ashboro, and randolph is nothing, but poverty, everywhere you look. Have so many nonprofits that people and lp these all u go on jobstar. Org, the money seems to be going to big salaries. Are getting wealthy taking money that should be these people more selfsufficient. Guest sure. Et me make a few comments and come to yours. The first one is, weve been talking a little bit as though were poor and some are not. Want to highlight how much how Many Americans over the course of their lives, especially american children, likely to experience poverty and i was the other day in ennsylvania and talked to a gentleman who is retired and talked about what it was like single growing up with a mother who died relatively young, worked incredibly hard to his brothers through school, he became the first in his family to get to ninth grade and first in his family to graduate from college and ended p retired College Professor having taught other young people who were the first in their and he o go to college said, first of all, the help crucial and he particularly highlighted food and he felt he had given back in of his life. Econd, he said, that having Health Insurance available now would have meant his mother would not have died as young as is a really hat important advance. Gettingo highlight that help is something that enables give back into work and to succeed. I think on the question of where resources go, of course they should go as much as possible directly to people, but they to go to doctors and nurses and those who can provide care workers and re people like the earlier caller who worked with people with disabilities. I think the vast majority of esources go to people or directly to healthcare or their own nutrition or income, there kinds of health often, for count on example, pell grants that help low income children go to those that help the students and help the institution. It is a mix. He last thing i want to say briefly is that i very much way ree with robert on the in which helping people connects to work. To me, congress has fixed, robert has been saying that for a lot of years and it is not anymore. If you look at Affordable Care act in the states that expanded parents dont have to worry, they will lose Health Insurance and childrens Health Insurance if they work. A lot of the ways that it used to be difficult to go back and the big obstacles that remain, the gentleman told us in talking about his New Hampshire, because if you dont have housing and you dont have food not althcare, your life is stable and if you were working 40 hours a week tis hard to keep that up. Host olivia golden, executive director of the center for law and social policy, harvard Robert Rector, Senior Research fellow at Heritage Foundation, to both of you as we to census numbers, we appreciate it. Ost there are currently 12 governors who now serve in the u. S. Senate and we kickoff our well introduce you to the Current Governor of delawa delaware, john carney. Bus will be traveling to all 50 states over 14 months. Eve been talking with members of the senate who serve in the state house, including another politician, senator former governor, tom carper. Senator carper, what is it like being a senator compared to a governor . Senator carper i say my worst day as governor was better than day arizona u. S. Senator, which is not true. A senator, grateful for the opportunity to be in this role. Governor with 49 other governors from all over the country and several territories, speaking the National Governors association about a month ago on Health Care Reform and i work with others including john kasich, and others on reform. Are so although i work here now, i a chance to have work with my old compadres. Day to day is the job load like . When i was governor, i felt i was never really off. Bad things can happen, could be fire, could bebe just a prison break, the neverending kind of job. I loved it. I loved the idea that i was i loved working with the legislature, delaware has something called delaware way. Democrats and republicans like each other. Democrats are we get a lot done and that is, we like to bring that spir sxit tradition to United States senate. Do hat skills as governor you think you carried over well being a senator . The idea of really figuring out the right thing to do, not the easy thing, just what is to do. Hing as governor i try to treat other people the way i want to be treated. I surrounded myself with the best people i could find and focus on excellence in did. Thing we i still do that. I learned, dont give up, just dont give up. Learned, give other people credit. I it was your achievement, gave credit to other people. That made me popular with my colleagues in the senate, they for stuff that i do. As far as staying in touch constituents, it is harder being a senator or governor . I go homein delaware, most nights. I like to sleep in my own bed own wife. I feel like an old governor, still call me governor. We have a governor, he used to finance. Retary of what is it like communicate withing your governor now . Hat kind of things do you talk about . What kind of information do you look to get from him now . We creaternor, how do more nurturing environment for job creation and preservation, he most important thing we can do is make sure people have jobs. Our Current Governor is very we Work Together hand in glove on all kind of projects. Focus on job preservation, hes governor, im recovering governor, i know who is the real governor. I have great affection for one another, we near this together. You work with other senators, work with the white house now, what challenges does that bring versus when you were the shots at governor . This is not the easiest white work or administration to with, had a hard time standing up to their administration. About everybody, significance in the obama administration, a lot of folks administration, we are governors together. This is where were challenged and taken a while to stand up to the operation and us to get used to working with one another. Is that theyll figure it out and we will to, the country needs us. A senator, became how long before you were getting a hang of the job . The curve like . I was a congressman before i governor. The thing i love about being governor, i love being one of 50 governors. We spend a lot of time together, Work Together. Transportation, you name it, a lot of same issues here. Wasnt like i didnt have familiarity with the issues. A lot of issues were working on on. Ay are issues i worked as currently stands, what are key issues your state is facing now . T weve lost two auto companies, manufacturing companies, companies down from 27,000 to about 4, we lost steel refinery, the key to help folks who had good jobs in the industries that have been downsized or gone away, help them retool and do the kind of employers are begging for people to do today. Ot just for delaware, for the country. Senator rp