The latest Economics 101 video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity brings clarity to the issue of poverty. Poverty is one of those key emotional issues for the left. Their logic typically goes like this: “There is poverty, therefore we need more government.” Or sometimes it gets flipped into: “You don’t want more government? Then you hate the poor!”

There are at least two problems with this logic. First, no connection between more government and alleviating poverty is established. In fact, as you’ll see in the video, an opposite connection likely exists: poverty was falling prior to the start of the War on Poverty, but has been stagnant since. Markets  have proven throughout history to work far better at increasing the lot of the poor than redistribution programs. In fact, it is only the free market system that has ever elevated the common man out of a state of poverty.

Second, there is a disconnect between the images evoked by the word poverty, and the state in which people falling under the governmental definition actually live. Because poverty is considered relative, the wealth of the poor has risen over time along with that of everyone else.  Today’s poor are in many cases as wealthy or wealthier than yesterday’s middle class. This isn’t to say that there aren’t actually folks living in conditions of grinding poverty, but they are far fewer than the official statistics would indicate.

But don’t take my word for it, check out the video: