AEI's research on welfare policy focuses on poverty and welfare reform; private and community efforts to restore the social and economic fabric of inner-city communities; and the effectiveness of federal nutrition, rehabilitation, and vocational training programs.

The poverty rate has been strangely out of sync with such fundamental determinants of absolute deprivation as per capita income, unemployment, educational attainment, and antipoverty spending since at least the early 1970s, writes Nicholas Eberstadt in an article for The American, "A Poverty of Statistics." So what is wrong with the official poverty rate? A host of well-founded technical criticisms have been leveled at it over the years, most focusing on its definition and measurement of family income. The real problem, however, is much simpler—and more profound. Our official poverty measure is measuring the wrong thing.   [Read More]