Population growth necessitates a proportional drop in poverty rate just for things to stay the same.
Looking at poverty through a lens which normalizes for population growth paints a completely different picture from what one will see in real life on the streets. When the rate stays constant and the population grows, the situation on the ground is worse, period.
Ah I did misread your comment. That said, I have no idea why that would be inappropriate. Can you go into more detail because I must have missed your point. For instance, how are you judging the situation on the ground? From any objective measure a per capita decrease seems to be a win.
When you're walking through the streets of your city, it's not important to you that the homeless people you see are some specific %age of the population over the last dozen years.
You care that the absolute number is equal to or less than the previous years.
The whole point of a per capita rate is to eliminate the effects of growth. While that is useful for measuring certain things, it's not really appropriate for things like poverty and crime.
The fact of the matter is it's damn near impossible to keep up with exponential growth without substantial effort to prevent bad outcomes for the added people. That starts looking like socialism, and this is USA, so good luck with that.
So instead we'll just look at per capita rates going down slightly, feel good about ourselves, and ignore the mess in the streets.
The good news is fertility rates are declining, if that trend continues maybe we can sort this out over the next 100+ years.
Okay, I understand your argument but that's not at all how that works. Framing poverty in absolute numbers creates an impossible slope to climb. Sure, it would be fantastic if we could reliably shoot for reducing the amount of poverty in absolute terms and that is (sort of) the goal anyway. HOWEVER, absolute terms are meaningless for measuring population effects.
Also exponential growth is keeping poverty down. Growth creates mobility because without growth economics becomes a zero sum game and NOBODY wants to live in that environment. You think the 70s were violent, well. . . .
As for fertility rates, that's also not how that works. Lower fertility rates mean fewer working age people to provide a tax base. That's why countries who have low birthrates are all encouraging immigration. Japan, for instance, with its low birthrate now has more immigrants than it has ever taken on.
In any case I think we have an epistemological disagreement and I don't expect to convince you, just to explain my thinking. Thanks for taking the time to explain your argument, and even though I disagree I appreciate it.
Much of what you point out as benefits of growth aren't necessarily the way it has to be. We have a deeply rooted system built entirely around a growth model, and growth will inevitably have to cease since it's inherently unsustainable. Everything will need to adapt to that situation, and much of your assumptions will necessarily no longer be true for the nation to function. I don't know what that will look like, but we must adapt to a world without growth, the sooner the better, for everyone in the long-term.
I already stated that it's impossible to keep up with the population growth. This is precisely why I feel it's important to clearly state the figures in terms that really reflect what's seen by individuals walking through our city streets. I don't have the impression that the average person actually groks this coupling, and it's articles like those portraying such things in per capita figures which helps reinforce the illusion things are improving while they're actually deteriorating.
Looking at poverty through a lens which normalizes for population growth paints a completely different picture from what one will see in real life on the streets. When the rate stays constant and the population grows, the situation on the ground is worse, period.