Romney Poverty Vs. Real Poverty

by Stuart Shapiro

Last week, Ann Romney tried to convince us that her husband understood poverty because of their experience as graduate students.  Richard Cohen points out the absurdity of this:

So the onus was on Ann to show that Mitt could connect. She swung and she missed. Poverty, after all, is not about bookcases made of planks and bricks but about utter hopelessness. The poor do not have affluent parents. The poor do not have college degrees. The poor often do not even have high school degrees.

I went through a period in my early twenties where I ate a lot of ramen and yogurt (I also ate chocolate doughnuts for breakfast, but that’s another issue).  But I was never “poor.”  Neither were the Romneys.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.