When we give thanks on Thursday, let’s remember that there are many public programs providing critically important assistance to people who aren’t as fortunate. Among them are a number of government programs that are working as intended to keep low-wage Americans and unemployed workers out of poverty. Unfortunately, some of those programs are under assault.

A recent New York Times article outlines data from a special Census Bureau report that was requested by the New York Times – an analysis of those that are not considered to be poor, but have slightly greater incomes between 100-150 percent above the poverty line. Using the Supplemental Poverty Measure that we describe in our other blog post today, the Census Bureau calculated that fifty-one million people fell into this category. They aren’t categorized as being poor, but are precariously close to being so – the “near poor.” The Census Bureau noted this was a larger number than expected. Nearly 20 percent, however, were kept above the poverty line because of programs that supplement income. Conversely, they were kept out of higher thresholds because of factors like out-of-pocket medical expenses, and work-related expenses like child care.

The NY Times article does a nice job of providing the stories of some of the people in that income range. And it points out another surprising fact – that 28 percent of the near poor work full-time.

Unfortunately, many state and federal budget cuts that have been made this year or are under consideration target the near poor. One example is the extended federal unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed, which may be coming to an end this year if Congress doesn’t come up with a plan to continue them. In addition, low-wage workers in Wisconsin who fall in the “near poor” category could pay a heavy price if the Department of Health Services is able to get federal approval for its proposed changes to BadgerCare. Those changes include much higher co-pays for families over the poverty level, and excluding some of those families from BadgerCare if they have offers of employer coverage – even in cases when the combined premiums, co-pays and deductibles for that coverage would consume a huge share of their income.

Let’s give thanks on Thursday that successful government programs have been keeping out of poverty tens of thousands of low-wage Wisconsinites, and let’s also be thankful that it’s not too late to preserve and protect those programs.

Jon Peacock and Julie Davidson