Via Paul Krugman comes this chart showing the correlation between social spending and poverty reduction in industrialized nations. Contrary to some conservative claims, it turns out there actually is such a relationship. Shocking, I know:
There may be some level at which poverty is intractable, but we’re nowhere near it. Now, it’s fair for a society to decide that it doesn’t want to spend much money trying to ease impoverishment, but we should be honest about that choice. Instead, there’s a lot of blather about how we “can’t” do anything. But that silly. There’s lots we can do. It just costs money.
