Does the United States have “the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country”?

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont thinks that we do.  Yes the same Senator Bernie Sanders who is running for President in the Democrat Primary.

An article in The Daily Caller attempts to determine if Senator Sanders is correct.  So let us look at the numbers.

According to the article, data from the U.N. agency UNICEF, clearly shows that the US has a lower child poverty rate than other first-world countries, such as Spain and Israel.

I believe that immediately answers the question and it appears Senator Sanders is either ignorant to those facts or he is making a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive

It appears to get even worse for Senator Sanders, Mr. Sanders is also incorrect when he claims Europeans are better off than Americans thanks to a host of social programs and entitlements.

Why does it get worse for Senator Sanders?

When you look at measuring poverty in countries most international organizations define poverty as earning below 60% of the country’s median income.

Poor Americans earn more than the median income in many the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.

Study after study have shown that a poor person in the US is better off than a middle-class person in no less than 10 other OECD countries.   These Studies also show the “level of income that would classify you as poor in America is within touching distance of the median income for some of the richest countries in the world like the U.K., Japan and Italy.”

The article states the following: “In other words, even if the poverty rate in Greece were zero percent, all those non-poor median Greek households would be poorer than a US household at the poverty line,” McMaken adds.

All any many of us are looking for is truth and honesty.  If we have elected leaders who cannot accept and talk about the facts of the issues then how are we expected to solve them?

The answer just might be they are not looking to solve them or they believe they cannot be solved so I will try to use the issues to get elected.

Let’s discuss this today on my program, The Live with Renk show, which airs Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to noon, to let me know your thoughts at (269) 441-9595.

Or please feel free to start a discussion and write your thoughts in the comment section.

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