That article is BS, the author even acknowledges that in a later post.
The main reason the share went from 30% to 6% is because people are richer. Poor people spend more money on food than rich people.
The main reason the share went from 30% to 6% is because people are richer. Poor people spend more money on food than rich people.
Food share dropped from ~30% to ~6% because real incomes have risen and food has become cheaper relative to housing, healthcare, education, and so on. That shift affects all income levels, including the poor. Your point doesn't contradict the article's, that the poverty line, based on 1960s food budgets, no longer reflect current costs of living.
Could you send the article where the author revises their claim?
You may think that poor people should be able to afford child care. That's a valid thought. But then you can't compare that to a 1950's definition of poverty where child care is definitely not affordable by the poor.
That actually illustrates the point nicely: typical economic and living situations from when the metric was created were very different from today in a variety of ways, and once again, the reason the 3x food costs number was chosen -- that roughly 1/3 of income of low-income households was spent on food -- is simply no longer true.
Now, what the poverty line should be is a whole 'nother topic -- for the record the ~150k number is more as an demonstration of how broken the metric is than an actual suggestion, at least as I see it. This discussion doesn't seem to be going anywhere though so I'm tapping out, but I would still appreciate it if you would link to the article you mentioned.