To understand how this proposal would work, it’s worth starting with how the Census defines poverty in the first place. The OPM was first created in the 1960s by Mollie Orshansky, an economist working for the Social Security Administration, who proposed poverty thresholds related to the cost of food: Any family earning less than three times the USDA estimate for the subsistence food budget is considered poor. Those thresholds have remained in place over the last half century, virtually unchanged other than by cost-of-living adjustments. Right now, according to the OPM, a family of three (with two adults and one child) counts as poor if their income amounts to less than $20,212 per year.

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The current OPM has faced criticism on a number of fronts, including failing to consider geographic variation (cost of living in Missoula is very different than Manhattan), account for any of the costs families face (such as medical costs or transit costs), or provide a full picture of families’ income (criticisms the Census has attempted to address with the creation of its much more robust Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM)). In short, the OPM is too low for most people’s understanding of poverty. It’s hard to reconcile a measurement that says only 12.3 percent of people in the U.S. are poor when more than 4 in 10 adults would struggle to come up with $400 in an emergency and 70 percent of voters have confronted a serious financial hardship in the last year.

The Trump administration’s proposal would drive the OPM even lower.

Right now, the poverty thresholds are adjusted annually by the CPI-U, or Consumer Price Index for Urban Consumers, which measures inflation by tracking the change in price for a set group of consumer goods across a range of geographic areas. Trump is proposing switching to a different measure of inflation. The proposal isn’t specific on which measure they would use, but it twice mentions the possibility of using the “chained CPI” (or the C-CPI-U) as an alternative. The chained CPI differs from the CPI-U in that it allows for substitution across similar kinds of items. For example, the chained CPI takes into account the idea that if the price of chicken is high, perhaps you switch to pork, whereas the CPI-U only accounts for substitutions within categories, such as picking a Granny Smith apple over a Red Delicious. By allowing for these additional substitutions, chained CPI shows a slower rate of inflation, but for many families who are already choosing between paying the rent and buying food, they are already living as frugally as possible.

In addition to being impractical, the chained CPI would push poverty thresholds further and further down over time. The chained CPI has grown more slowly than the CPI-U by about 0.25 percentage points annually. That means that every year, chained CPI will redraw the thresholds lower than the CPI-U would have, in a way that compounds over time. For example, say that inflation under the CPI-U increased by 2.4 percent a year over the next decade. That means that 2018’s $20,212 poverty threshold for two adults and one child of today would be $25,021 in 2027 (in 2018 dollars). If the chained CPI grew 0.25 percentage points less each year the poverty threshold for this family would be about $544 lower at $24,447. By 2037 the difference would grow to $1,439 less.

This change to the OPM matters way beyond just measuring who is poor and who isn’t — changing it would have a ripple effect for millions of people. The poverty thresholds the Census publishes are the basis of the poverty guidelines issued by HHS. And HHS’s poverty guidelines are the basis of eligibility for a whole range of programs that help people meet their basic needs. Making this change would have long-term echo effects, chipping away at eligibility over the years. For example, school kids qualify for free meals and milk if they are at less than 130 percent of the federal poverty guidelines, and for reduced-price meals and milk if they are at less than 185 percent of the guidelines. Children up to age 5 can are eligible to attend Head Start or Early Head Start if they are poor (as defined by the guidelines). Low-income taxpayers can receive assistance resolving disputes with the IRS if they are at or under 250 percent of the poverty guidelines. As these definitions capture fewer and fewer people due to reduced inflation increases, there will be fewer and fewer people who receive the services they need.

We have estimates of how rapidly these changes can increase from the moment earlier this decade when policymakers (including some Democrats) supported changing the cost of living adjustment for Social Security benefits to the chained CPI. Research Joan Entmacher and I did at that time revealed that while the initial impact of this cut might seem small — averaging only about 0.3 percent cut to benefits per year — overtime these cuts would compound to create real harm. For example, if the chained CPI had been substituted for a single woman with a monthly benefit of $1,100, her benefit would be cut by $56 per month at age 80. By the time she reached 95, that cut would be more than $100 a month. If she received a benefit for 30 years, her cumulative losses would be nearly $20,000.

Benefits already fall short all too often. SNAP benefits typically run out before the end of the month, and kids go hungry in the summer without the benefit of school meals. Yet rather than provide families the support they need to meet their basic needs, Trump is proposing to artificially reduce poverty while actually cutting benefits — creating the illusion of a win from his perspective that is actually a heavy loss for low-income families.

Today, thanks to the efforts of local advocates led by the NJ Time to Care Coalition, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) signed into law dramatic improvements to New Jersey’s paid family leave law. The law doubles the length of paid family leave available to 12 weeks, increases the average weekly benefit to $859 from $632, improves supports for domestic violence survivors and their families, and more.

One of the most exciting policy advances is that the bill updates the definition of “family” to people who “have a close association with the employee which is the equivalent of a family relationship,” making New Jersey the first state in the nation to extend paid family leave benefits to chosen family. This new law will particularly improve the economic security of workers who are LGBTQ or who have a disability, as these workers are most likely to be forced to make the impossible choice between caring for a chosen family member and taking home a paycheck.

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New Jersey’s victory is standing on the shoulders of decades of legal precedent. The U.S. government first recognized chosen family during Vietnam, allowing federal workers to take leave for the funerals of loved ones killed in combat if those people had “a close association with the employee … equivalent to a family relationship.” More federal benefits incorporated this definition in the 1990s, and in the last few years a host of states and localities, such as Arizona, Chicago, and Austin, have passed paid sick time laws that are inclusive of chosen family.

What is chosen family anyway? Simply put, it’s those people in your life you would do anything for. For me, one of those people is my college roommate, Diana. When my mom had a potentially fatal cerebral hemorrhage the month before finals our senior year, Diana dropped everything and drove with me nine hours to the hospital. When Diana’s son was born prematurely at just 24 weeks, I took time off work to help support her and her family. Diana and I have been family for more than 20 years — longer than I’ve known my husband, my stepmother, or any of my nieces and nephews — but until now no state in the country would have let us take paid family leave to take care of each other.

And Diana and I aren’t alone — millions of people across the country have an elderly neighbor who is more like a grandmother or a battle buddy they served with in the military. In fact, research Laura Durso and I conducted shows nearly one in three Americans have taken time off work to care for chosen family. While caring for chosen family is a shared experience, it is especially common among LGBTQ workers and workers with disabilities, due in part to family rejection, making this advance particularly important for those communities.

While this bill makes New Jersey a trailblazer on paid family leave and chosen family, this is the latest step for the movement to increase recognition of the importance of supporting diverse family structures in legislation. Historically, of course, diverse families have always existed, but the law has at best ignored them and at worst actively harmed them, from denying cash benefits to unmarried mothers to defining marriage as a union limited to one man and one woman. While harmful family policies still exist, increasing legal recognition of chosen family is a bright light.

Of course, these legal changes were not happening in a vacuum. In the media, chosen family rose to the spotlight as the name of Noreen Stevens’ cartoon about Canadian lesbians and their loved ones, and is in evidence today on FX’s award-winning Pose, about New York City ball culture, as well as in media that isn’t queer-specific. (X-Men or Fast and the Furious, anyone?) And more to the point, it’s the reality of people’s lives, perhaps made most painfully, tragically clear during the height of the AIDS epidemic, when chosen family were denied visitation rights in hospitals despite their family-like relationships.

New Jersey has made a great start. Who’s next?

This is the third time the government has shut down in the last year and — unless President Donald Trump drops his demand for a border wall — everything from the national parks to the National Science Foundation could be closing up shop again on Feb. 16.

In the face of all that, America’s federal workers are thinking twice about their careers — and that’s bad for workers and the country.

Historically, the federal government (and public service writ large) has been a pretty good place to work. Not only does it allow people to serve their country (which many are keen on), it is the kind of quality job that all people should have. There is stability. There are retirement benefits. There is health care. There is paid leave. There is pay transparency. There is a union.

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Due in large part to the fact that the federal government has offered stable opportunities for advancement and a secure job with a steady paycheck, the federal workforce has disproportionately attracted people of color and people with disabilities. The latest data show that people of color are overrepresented in the federal government: More than 18 percent of workers in the federal government are black (compared to about 11 percent of the overall labor force) and Native Americans are more than one-and-a-half times as likely to work for the federal government than be in the overall labor force. Fourteen percent of full-time federal workers are people with disabilities, compared to 3.8 percent in the overall labor force. Veterans, who comprise nearly a third of the federal government, are also disproportionately represented.

But while federal jobs tick many of the job-quality boxes, satisfaction has been declining. The latest data reveal that morale at the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services fell by more than 10 percentage points between 2017 and 2018, and morale at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau dropped by an astounding 25 percentage points.

One can only imagine what basement these numbers would be in if the survey happened this week.

This decline is likely due in no small part to the fact that attacks on federal workers have been mounting in recent years. Their work has been condescendingly dismissed by Trump, and National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow referred to their unpaid efforts during the shutdown as “volunteering.” They have been asked to work with fewer staff due to hiring freezes and for diminishing wages due to Republican-pushed pay freezes.

Public sector unions have come under attack, both by Trump and the Supreme Court. And now workers have literally been forced to make do without pay, while many have still been having to show up and clock in. More and more work is being shifted to contractors who have fewer protections and who will likely not even be paid for the time they could not work during the shutdown. (Contractor satisfaction, which is likely even lower, deserves a whole article unto itself.)

Is it any wonder there have been reports of federal workers departing government service?

This could spell trouble, not just for the workers themselves who deserve far more than to be pawns in Trump’s racist game of chicken with the economy, but for our country in general. Reduced employee morale can lead to lower productivity — not a good thing when you’re trying to run a business, much less a country. We’ve also seen what it looks like when we don’t sufficiently invest in public services: lines get longer, corporations get away with defrauding the American people, and people die waiting for the services and benefits they need.

And if Trump’s divisiveness leads to less diversity within the workforce, the evidence indicates that could be bad for the public, too, because it matters who our public servants are. Research finds that having a diverse public labor force is important for the consideration of the interests of people of color in a range of circumstances.  For example, having more black and Latino bureaucrats is related to having more Latinos and blacks judged eligible for rural housing loans. Having a larger share of black federal workers in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is positively related to the number of discrimination claims filed by black workers.

There are high costs to everyone when we treat federal workers like disposable widgets — and in the wake of the shutdown we may find out exactly how high they are.

Overturning Initiative 77, which would gradually raise the tipped minimum wage from $3.89 per hour to the full minimum wage by 2026, would be a tough blow for tipped workers. They’re already three times more likely to live in poverty than other workers—and those odds get worse for people of color.

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New analysis by the Economic Policy Institute shows that in D.C., people of color make up 70 percent of the tipped workforce. This alone ensures that communities of color are most affected by Initiative 77.  Moreover, when we analyzed wage gaps for full-time, year-round workers in tipped occupations (referred to here as “tipped workers”), we found that tipped workers of color also earn significantly less than white tipped workers in D.C.

Among full-time, year-round tipped workers in the District, the median annual wages of Hispanic tipped workers were $25,760—$10,737 less than the wages of non-Hispanic white tipped workers. Non-Hispanic black tipped workers made even less at $25,345, a gap of $11,152. This discrepancy is due in part to the nature of tipping itself, which creates a power structure that permits discrimination to blossom: Academic researchers found that black servers receive tips that average 15 percent to 25 percent less than white servers. The result is a wage gap so big that it could cover nearly 6 months of child care, or more than 8 months of rent, in one of the most expensive cities in the country.

This sizable gaps in tipped workers’ wages mirrors broader economic inequalities in the District, which has one of the nation’s largest racial income gaps. New data out this week from the Census Bureau show that while median household income for white families was more than $134,000, the median black household income was just over $42,000—less than one-third as much. And although at nearly $85,000 per year, D.C.’s Hispanic families have the highest household income of Hispanics across the nation’s 50 biggest cities, it still leaves them nearly $50,000 below white families.

Given the disparities they face, it’s not surprising that communities of color came out strongly in favor of giving tipped workers a raise. Across D.C.’s eight wards, support for Initiative 77 was highly correlated with the share of residents of color. In Wards 7 and 8, where more than 90 percent of residents are black, Initiative 77 passed with more than 60 percent of the vote. The only ward where initiative 77 did not win the majority of the vote was Ward 3—the whitest, and wealthiest, ward in the district.

In other words, if D.C. Council members reverse Initiative 77, they’ll not only be disproportionately hurting D.C.’s communities of color—they’ll also be directly silencing these communities’ voices by disregarding their votes.

Methods: In our analysis, which employs the 2012-2016 American Community Survey,  we used the same “customarily tipped occupations” that the D.C. government used it its minimum wage impact study. This definition is very similar but not identical to the occupations used by the Economic Policy Institute in their analysis. Notes: In this analysis, “workforce” includes all those who are employed.

The trouble is, there isn’t much actual information beyond the signage—and the information being shared isn’t backed by research.

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D.C.’s overall minimum wage is $12.50 per hour, and will increase to $15 by 2020. By law, employers have to ensure that tipped workers make that amount as well—by combining the base wage of $3.33 with their tips—and if workers’ wages are too low, employers are required to supplement them. In practice, employers often fail to do this. Research by the Economic Policy Institute found that recent Department of Labor investigations of close to 9,000 restaurants resulted in workers receiving nearly $5.5 million in back pay because of tipped wage violations.

Low wages have left many tipped workers struggling to make ends meet. Roughly 1 in 4 D.C. bartenders, servers, manicurists and pedicurists, and shampooers made $11.71 per hour or less in 2017*—well below a living wage in the district. D.C.’s tipped workers are also nearly twice as likely to live in poverty compared to the city’s overall workforce.

The concerns with the tipped wage go beyond just money—the power dynamics of the tipping system allow discrimination and inequality to flourish. One study showed that black servers receive tips that average 15 percent to 25 percent less than white servers, and in D.C., tipped female workers are twice as likely as tipped male workers to live in poverty. It also paves the way for sexual harassment: 1 in 7 sexual harassment charges filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are in the accommodation and food service industry.

In contrast, research shows that the eight states without a tipped minimum wage have higher average earnings and lower poverty rates among tipped workers, without hurting their employment rates. Specifically, in equal treatment states, tipped workers’ median earnings are 14 percent higher and the growth of restaurants and restaurant employment is more robust compared with states that use the federal minimum tipped wage of $2.13 per hour. Research also suggests that abolishing the tipped minimum wage may be particularly advantageous for women, as the average wage gap for women tipped workers in equal treatment states is one-third smaller than the wage gap for women tipped workers in states that maintain the federal tipped minimum wage.

While the evidence is clear on the positive impacts for D.C.’s lower-wage tipped workers, the District’s high-end restaurant and bar scene, with its higher-paid workforce, has been the center of attention during much of the debate, with figures ranging from Mayor Muriel Bowser to Chef José Andrés voicing concerns that the unified minimum wage will lead to higher prices and lower pay.

It’s tough to envision that high-end establishments’ well-off clientele, wine-and-dine lobbyists, and company-credit-card-wielding business travelers will suddenly become highly price-sensitive if the cost of a meal rises slightly. And any increase would likely be relatively small: Labor costs only account for an average of 30 percent of restaurant operating costs, and businesses absorb higher minimum wages through reductions in costly turnover and increases in productivity. It’s also unlikely diners would compensate for higher prices by offering a smaller gratuity: data on tipping show that tipping behavior in equal treatment states is virtually indistinguishable from tipping behavior in states that have different minimum wages for tipped workers.

What’s more, this focus on D.C.’s high-end establishments misses the bigger picture. Not only is the district home to many restaurant workers who struggle to make ends meet—even after tips—but one-fifth of D.C.’s tipped workers aren’t in the restaurant industry at all. Many valets and manicurists, for example, don’t earn 20 percent on top of an expensive meal, but the Department of Labor allows their employers to pay them D.C.’s $3.33 per hour base wage as long as they “customarily and regularly” receive $30 or more per month in tips.

Initiative 77—which 70 percent of voters support—would reduce poverty and increase economic security among tipped workers in the district, as well as better protect them against discrimination, wage theft, and sexual harassment. The effects would be particularly powerful for women and people of color. Chipping in a little more for craft cocktails and small plates at happy hour seems like a small price to pay.

* Note: At the time these data were collected, the minimum wage in Washington, D.C. was $11.50 per hour.

These allegations inch the media coverage closer to the reality many women face, in part because many of the people reporting are ordinary restaurant employees rather than high-profile actresses or news anchors. There’s also the matter of the industry they work in: Low-paid working women are often at the greatest risk for abuse, particularly if they are in service professions.

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At the same moment, the Trump administration is pushing a rule that could make tipped workers even more vulnerable to harassment. In early December, the Labor Department—urged on by the restaurant lobby—announced a plan that could allow employers to steal tips from their workers. Under the new rule, employers could pool all tips and distribute this money to other workers, including non-tipped workers—or keep it for themselves. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that the rule could allow employers to pocket $5.8 billion in workers’ tips each year, in an industry where 66 percent of workers are women and 25 percent of workers are women of color.

This could result not only in the theft of tipped workers’ wages—even though they are already nearly twice as likely to live in poverty as other workers—but it could also increase their likelihood of being sexually harassed. Tipped workers are often at the mercy of customers to make ends meet financially, and the new rule would add additional pressure from employers and managers who would control the distribution of tips. That could drive conditions from bad—accommodations and food service workers already account for 1 out of 7 sexual harassment charges filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission—to worse.

And the proposal’s effects don’t stop with tipped workers. If employers choose to redistribute the tips to other non-tipped employees, they could classify them as tipped workers and knock their base wage down to $2.13 per hour. This could raise their risk for sexual harassment as well as wage theft because, while employers are legally required to ensure tipped workers are paid the minimum wage, evidence shows employers often don’t.

There is, of course, another option: Instead of rushing through a rule that will lower wages and increase vulnerability to harassment for tipped workers—all with a very limited period for public feedback—the Trump administration could focus on paying tipped workers fair wages. That means eliminating their separate minimum wage, which is something the minimum wage bill before Congress would do. Evidence shows this would work: In the seven states that have abolished the separate tipped minimum wage—where employers are now required to pay their workers at least minimum wage—tipped workers take home higher pay and are less likely to experience harassment. Pair that with solutions to reduce sexual harassment in the workplace, and you’re poised to make progress not only on economic security but also on reducing the number of workers who have to say #MeToo.

This goal—and the plan for how to get there—are bullshit.

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Let’s talk about the goal first: a stable two-parent family. Brooks is feeding the narrative that there is an ideal kind of family—one that does best, one that is how people should be. It’s a family with two married parents. It’s a family in which people have children and mostly women raise them. It’s a family in which no one dies or is infertile or is incarcerated. It’s a family in which no one decides to stay single or childless or get divorced.

It is, in short, not reality. And making policy around this idealized vision of family has very real, often terrible consequences.

First, there is the emotional toll. When there is one ideal, people are crucified for falling short. They are blamed and marginalized. Their families are vilified and demonized. We have seen this with black single moms during welfare reform, gay parents during the same sex marriage movement, and now families with disabilities as policymakers seek to cut benefits. This helps no one.

Second, policies that focus on this idealized family, which account for less than one-fifth of American households, leave out the needs of tons of other families. We saw this last fall, when the Trump campaign floated a paid leave plan that only applied to birth mothers. The plan not only left out adoptive parents and male parents, it also ignored the needs of people caring for aging or disabled loved ones, sick children, their partners, or themselves.

Third, it can waste a ton of money. Jennifer Randles’s work reveals that though the nation has spent close to a billion dollars on programs that promote marriage over the last two decades, “couples who took government-funded relationship skills classes were neither more likely to marry or stay together nor to improve their financial situations.”

Fourth, policies aimed at keeping people married can trap people in dangerous relationships—even kill them. Perhaps the starkest example is the dramatic changes in women’s well-being after the passage of no-fault divorce. Research by Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers shows that in states that passed no-fault divorce laws, suicide rates among wives decreased by 8 to 16 percent and domestic violence rates fell by 30 percent.

Even if we set Brooks’s dubious two-parents-a-dog-and-a-white-picket-fence goal aside, the policies he mentions would fall short of what any kind of family needs. His proposals to “help” families focus on changing individual choices without mentioning the systems that override them. Brooks fails to mention how America’s incarceration system is dividing families, particularly black families. He doesn’t address the fact that our nation’s immigration policies are literally ripping families apart. He does not discuss the importance of health care, good jobs, or reproductive care—all of which have been linked to strong and stable families. A few programs and a social script are not going to cut it.

Instead of this harmful, narrow vision of family, we should be looking for ways to value and support a whole range of healthy, stable families. Some are single parents. Some are couples without children. Some are brothers taking care of sisters, grandparents caring for children, extended chosen families. All of these families deserve support and appreciation.

When you have a broader vision of family, you can make the kind of policy choices that actually support everyone. And you can also make clear to all kinds of families that they are not less than or inadequate—and they deserve to have their needs met.

For starters, The Post continues to over-count “working-age” beneficiaries by including more than half a million people over 65—even adding in some people who are more than 80 years old. Moreover, instead of using the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS)—what the Census calls “the premier source for detailed information about the American people”—The Post uses a far less common data setThe CDC’s “Bridged-Race Population Estimates” data set was developed for the purpose of permitting “estimation and comparison of race-specific statistics.” It is used by researchers whose main goal is to calculate consistent birth and death rates for small-sized racial and ethnic groups—not at all what The Post’s analysis attempts to do. Researchers commonly adjust data for special purposes—but with the understanding that in doing so, they sacrifice the data’s accuracy in other ways. from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Compared to ACS data, these data undercount the number of working-age people in rural counties, which in turn jacks up The Post’s findings on the percentages of working-age people who are receiving disability benefits in these counties.

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But let’s not lose the forest for the trees here. Even using The Post’s flawed methods, they were only able to find one county—out of more than 3,100 counties nationwide—where the story’s central claim that “as many as one-third of working-age adults are receiving monthly disability checks” holds up. Not a single other county even comes close. In fact, The Post’s own analysis—which it has now made available in a public data file next to the story, yields an average rate of about 9.1 percent of working-age adults receiving benefits across rural counties—just three percentage points higher than the national average.*

And yet the article is framed as follows: “Across large swaths of the country,” the article still reads, “disability has become a force that has reshaped scores of mostly white, almost exclusively rural communities, where as many as one-third of working-age adults are receiving monthly disability checks.”

If by “large swaths” and “scores of… rural communities” The Post means McDowell County, West Virginia, population less than 21,000 residents—and nowhere else in America—then sure.

But the fact is there’s a word for using data this way: cherry-picking.

Moreover, if you swap out the unusual data set The Post chose for the aforementioned Census Bureau’s ACS data, you actually won’t find a single county in the U.S. where The Post’s central claim is true—and the dramatic percentages The Post’s map and other graphics depict start to look a lot less, well, dramatic.

Media should take great care in its coverage of critical programs like Social Security Disability Insurance. Reporting based on outliers—not to mention flawed data analysis—risks misleading the public and policymakers in ways that could jeopardize the economic wellbeing and even survival of millions of Americans with serious disabilities and severe illnesses who are already living on the financial brink.

Here’s hoping the rest of The Post’s disability series meets the highest bar for accuracy, even if that means less click-bait.

*The figure is the population-weighted average based on the working age population per The Post’s public data file. Researchers customarily use population-weighted averages to account for variations in county size.

The Post’s central assertion—flanked by an interactive map—was that as many as one-third of working-age adults in rural communities are living on monthly disability checks. But the data analysis supporting this argument doesn’t hold up.

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In a sidebar to the article, the Post says they used publicly available county-level data from the Social Security Administration (SSA) to count “every working-age person who receives benefits through the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program or both.” But the Social Security Administration doesn’t publish the data needed for that calculation. In an email response to our request for these data, the SSA  confirmed that these data are “not readily available.”

The Center for American Progress also reached out to the Post to ask about their data. The Post confirmed in an email exchange that they did indeed rely on publicly available data, and identified the specific reports, tables, and figures they used.

We tried to replicate their analysis, and here’s why their numbers are flat-out wrong. (Warning: We are about to dive head-first into the weeds.)

The analysis overcounts working-age people receiving disability benefits by nearly 500,000. The SSA doesn’t publish county-level data on SSDI beneficiaries in the age range the Post defines as “working age” (18 to 64). SSA’s OASDI Beneficiaries by State and County report does provide county-level data on SSDI beneficiaries (Table 4), including disabled worker beneficiaries. However, of the 8,909,430 disabled worker SSDI beneficiaries whom the table breaks down by county, 472,080—or about 5 percent—are age 65 or older. Including these older disabled workers would inflate the share of working-age people with disabilities.

It overcounts “disabled adult children” by about 750,000. About 1 million SSDI beneficiaries are disabled adult children (DACs)—people whose disability onset occurred before age 22 and who are insured for SSDI benefits based on a parent’s work record. Since the Post claims to count working-age people receiving SSDI, SSI, or both, they need to include working-age DACs. But—contrary to the Post’s data sidebar—there are no data available on working-age DACs at the county level.

The same SSA table from above does provide county-level data on one group of “children” receiving SSDI—totaling 1,755,276 in 2015. The problem is, these children aren’t disabled adults—they’re actually the offspring of disabled workers. Most are under age 18, and most are not disabled. Not only does erroneously using these data mean including minors without disabilities, it also inflates the number of DACs by about three-quarters of a million, since the total number of DACs aged 18-64 is 977,776. What’s more, offspring of disabled workers and DACs are likely differently distributed across counties, creating problems in county-level comparisons.

It can’t accurately adjust for double-counting the 1.3 million working-age people who receive both SSDI and SSI (a.k.a. “concurrent beneficiaries”). About 1.3 million working-age Americans receive a small amount in benefits from both SSDI and SSI—generally people with very low incomes and limited resources. To avoid double-counting these folks, the Post would need county-level figures on concurrent beneficiaries. But here they run into another problem: SSA doesn’t publish county-level data on working-age concurrent beneficiaries. The Social Security Administration does provide the number of people receiving both SSI and Social Security benefits of any type (Table 3), but that figure also includes people receiving any other kind of Social Security benefit (like survivor or retirement benefits). What’s more, they also include concurrent beneficiaries who are children and adults 65 and older. Both of these issues make it impossible to calculate for working-age beneficiaries receiving both SSDI and SSI at the county level. So these county-level figures can’t give the Post what they need to accurately mitigate their double-counting problem.

It’s missing data for a whopping 106 counties. Mostly because of small population size, SSA doesn’t publish county-level data on SSI beneficiaries for 106 counties. This would be problematic for any county-level analysis. But it’s especially notable given that the Post’s article focuses on rural counties—as some 97 of the counties with missing data are rural. It’s unclear how the Post treats these counties in their analysis.

This might seem like a lot of trouble to go through to explain two inaccurate newspaper articles. But the thing is, misleading media reports have consequences—particularly in political climates like the one we’re living in right now. Just this week, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney once again opened the door to cutting Social Security Disability Insurance, despite President Trump’s pledge not to cut Social Security. Misleading media reports based on inaccurate data analysis risk giving Mulvaney and others cover to slash critical programs like SSDI.

Media covering this important program should get their facts straight before going to press.

But you wouldn’t know that from reading the New York Times’ front-page story last Friday. The headline announced “In the Shopping Cart of a Food Stamp Household: Lots of Soda,” and the article was flanked by photos of a grocery cart overflowing with 2-liter bottles of soft drinks and a store aisle that is nothing but a wall of soda.

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The actual conclusion of USDA’s study—“both food stamp recipients and other households generally made similar purchases”—is buried 15 paragraphs down from the sensationalized headline. The article did not initially link to or even name the study.

Soon after publication, several experts took to social media to highlight the study’s actual findings.

Joe Soss, a political scientist at the University of Minnesota, pointed out that the article’s main argument—that households receiving nutrition assistance spend vastly greater shares of their grocery budgets on soda compared with other households—is directly contradicted by the report’s actual finding. The difference was incredibly slight: 5 percent versus 4 percent of a household’s grocery spending. The Times also reported that a misleadingly high 9 percent of budgets were dedicated to soda, because the article conflated soda with “sweetened drinks” (which includes many juices).

Philip Cohen, a University of Maryland sociologist, noted that the article failed to mention the food item where USDA found the biggest difference in spending: baby food. (Shame on those struggling households for feeding their children.)

Beyond the article’s inaccuracies, there is a broader problem with this kind of reporting. It reinforces an “us versus them” narrative—as though “the poor” are a stagnant class of Americans permanently dependent on aid programs. The New York Times’ own past reporting has shown that this simply isn’t the case. Research by Mark Rank, which the paper featured in 2013, shows that four in five Americans will face at least a year of significant economic insecurity during their working years. And analysis by the White House Council on Economic Advisers finds that 70 percent of Americans will turn to a means-tested safety net program such as nutrition assistance at some point during their lives.

Most families who turn to income supports like SNAP do so only temporarily, and often during periods of crisis (such as loss of a job or a medical emergency). Since today’s low wages make it nearly impossible for families to save for these emergencies, which all of us inevitably face, benefits like SNAP provide critical support. These programs help put them back on their feet—and once they are, they stop their participation.

Americans’ high level of sugar consumption, and the related health consequences, is an important discussion to have. But using a false and divisive narrative that suggests that such consumption is chiefly the purview of people who need to turn to nutrition assistance plays directly into harmful stereotypes, and risks undermining a critical program that protects nearly 5 million Americans from poverty each year. These kinds of narratives have long served as the backbone of efforts to cut safety net benefits, like SNAP, which not only help struggling families in the short-term but also boost economic mobility in the long-term, while stabilizing the overall economy.

The current political climate makes this article particularly damaging and irresponsible. It provides cover for House Republicans, led by Speaker Ryan (R-WI) and President-elect Trump’s nominee for Health and Human Services, Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), who are poised to move forward with long-held plans to make deep cuts to nutrition assistance and other vital supports. It also enables misguided Republican governors who have long tried to limit what households receiving assistance can spend their SNAP benefits on. These so-called “junk food bans” may sound well-intentioned, but can end up ensnaring healthy, inexpensive staples like canned tuna, dried beans, and potato salad.

If the goal is to create a nutrition assistance program that will encourage healthier eating, cuts to SNAP are exactly the wrong approach. Research shows that increasing SNAP’s modest benefits leads to healthier eating. This comes as little surprise, given that healthy food is generally more expensive. But since SNAP’s modest benefits already run out before the end of the month for most households, it is a luxury that many families cannot afford.

Maybe the New York Times could look into that.

The majority of voters are still unlikely to face issues on Election Day, but the new burdens fall disproportionately on a select cohort of Americans. Here are the groups of people who will face some of the steepest battles to cast their vote.

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People of color

African-Americans had the highest voter turnout rates in 2012, but new obstacles could keep many black voters from the ballot box this year. Laws that require voters to present photo ID at the polls—which have cropped up in eight states since 2013, bringing the total to 34 states—disproportionately impact African-Americans. That’s because people of color are less likely than whites to have the specific forms of required photo ID, and because these laws are more common in  Southern states (where African-Americans are concentrated).

In addition to obstructive voter ID laws, Latinos, Asian-Americans, and Native Americans are often plagued by language barriers. While the Voting Rights Act contains protections for language-minority voters, poll workers are not always aware of them (so they might not honor these voters’ rights, for example, to have someone assist them at the polls).

People of color often have to take more time and travel further distances in order to vote. In 2012, black and Latino voters waited nearly twice as long as white voters to cast their ballots, likely due in part to state decisions to restrict early voting. And this year, Native Americans in northern Nevada will have to travel nearly 100 miles round-trip to cast their ballot in November.

Homeless people

First, the good news: in recent years, court decisions and new laws at both the state and federal level have eliminated formal bans on voters who do not live in a “traditional dwelling.” As a result, homeless people are now formally able to register and vote in every state.

But homeless adults—of whom there are at least 400,000 nationally—still face a variety of informal barriers. Some states require voters to provide a mailing address when they register. Other states require voters to prove how long they have lived in a voting district, a task that is understandably difficult for homeless people. And again, stricter voter restriction laws—like photo ID requirements—fall particularly hard on the homeless community, who are less likely to have a driver’s license or other forms of acceptable identification.

People with criminal records

Americans with criminal records, especially those with felony convictions, face some of the steepest—and most convoluted—barriers to the ballot box. In fact, a new study found that a record 6.1 million people are barred from voting this year because of felony convictions.

Because voting for people with felony convictions has not been federally regulated, those seeking to register face a patchwork of state voting laws that range from no restrictions (in Maine and Vermont) to a lifetime of disenfranchisement (in 10 states). Ten states also restrict voting for people with misdemeanors. These restrictions disproportionately impact people of color. In Florida, felony disenfranchisement bars 23% of African Americans from voting, and four other states also suppress the votes of 1 in 5 black citizens.

Unfortunately, the confusion and misinformation around state laws can even discourage eligible Americans with criminal records from voting. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, “Many people with past criminal records mistakenly believe they are ineligible to vote.” As a result, many end up staying home unnecessarily on Election Day.

Women

Even though women made up a majority of voters in 2012, voter ID laws are creating new obstacles for them, too. Thirty-four states require voters to present some kind of identification. Roughly 90% of women change their last names when they get married (and often change their names back following a divorce), and many may not realize their voter registration does not match the name on their ID until it comes time to vote. What’s more, women are also more likely to belong to other groups who face barriers at the polls—low-wage workers, seniors, students, and the poor.

Low-wage workers

More than 23 million people—disproportionately women and people of color—work in low-wage jobs. These workers are especially likely to have volatile and erratic schedules, which makes it hard for them to plan to get to the polls. Additionally, only 30 states require employers to give workers time off to vote—and even among states that do provide workers leave to vote, that time off is not always paid.

For workers who subsist on very low wages, the decision to take time off to cast a ballot can result in a difficult financial loss. That may explain the 30-point gap in voter participation along income lines: Less than half of people earning under $30,000 a year voted in the 2012 election, while over 80% of people earning over $150,000 voted. As a point of comparison, 99% of the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans voted.

Transgender people

Transgender citizens have become a vocal voting bloc this election cycle, but stringent photo ID laws threaten their ability to cast a ballot. An estimated 27% of trans people lack identification that accurately reflects their gender, in large part because they face uphill legal and financial battles to update their ID documents. For example, in at least 15 states, trans people are required to show proof of a gender reassignment surgery—a task that is simply not possible for those who are unable or choose not to have the surgery.

People with disabilities

People with disabilities face a wide range of voting obstacles, but chief among them are transportation, lack of accommodations at the polls, and poll workers who are ill-equipped to offer help. A full 30% of people with disabilities are unable to drive, which makes it hard to get to the polls in the first place—particularly for those voters who live alone or in rural areas. Even if they manage to make it to their polling location, a lack of ramps or curb cuts and limited support for voters with vision impairments make it difficult for people with disabilities to vote—even though laws like the Help America Vote Act of 2002 and the Americans with Disabilities Act were designed to improve ballot access. These barriers help explain why turnout rates among voters with disabilities—especially those with cognitive disabilities—tend to be lower than voters without disabilities. In fact, it can be difficult for people with disabilities to even register to vote, since most online voter registrations are not accessible for people with vision-related or cognitive disabilities. All told, these barriers to access could account for as many as 3 million votes.

None of these barriers are inevitable. Most are the consequences of policy decisions, some of which were made with the deliberate intent of disenfranchisement. Election Day gives Americans the opportunity to reverse these laws, and to elect policymakers who will work on behalf of those who don’t always have a voice.

As antipoverty advocates, we’ve become so accustomed to poverty staying stagnant—or getting worse—since the turn of this century that we barely know how to celebrate this kind of progress properly.  So, let’s take a minute to appreciate it.

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The U.S. poverty rate saw one of the largest single-year declines in almost 50 years. After years of stagnant incomes the typical American household got a raise for the first time in nearly a decade, with median household income rising more in one year than ever recorded. Meanwhile, the share of Americans without health insurance dropped to a record low, making 2015 the first time we’ve seen simultaneous improvements on all three fronts—poverty, median household income, and health insurance coverage—since 1999.

The improvements we’re marking this week didn’t happen by accident—they’re the result of policies that work. And with the wrong policy choices, we could see these important gains erased.

Take the minimum wage. State and local minimum wage increases likely played a big role in the decline in poverty and increase in income that we saw in 2015—as well as the faster wage growth among African American and Hispanic workers, and women (all of whom are disproportionately likely to be low-wage workers). They also likely helped the gender wage gap hit 80 cents for the first time ever, and led to even stronger progress on the wage gap for African American women. And in states that enacted minimum wage increases, low-wage workers saw faster wage growth than workers in states where minimum wages stayed flat.

On the health insurance front, the Affordable Care Act remains the gift that keeps on giving. The tremendous gains in coverage that we saw in 2014 and 2015 brought the nation to a record low uninsured rate of 9.1%. But here too, variation across states demonstrates the difference that policy choices make. The average share of uninsured individuals in states that hadn’t expanded Medicaid by January 2015 was 12.3%, compared to just 7.2% in states that had adopted Medicaid expansion. It is clear that the national gains would have been even stronger if 19 states weren’t still refusing to expand their Medicaid programs.

And let’s not forget the safety net. Census data released yesterday using the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), an alternative measure that takes into account critical poverty-reducing investments such as nutrition assistance and tax credits for working families, reminds us how important these and other programs are to cutting poverty and mitigating hardship. According to the SPM, without Social Security nearly 27 million more Americans would have been poor in 2015—that would be an increase of more than 58% in the share of poor Americans. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program protected 4.6 million Americans from poverty. And the Earned Income Tax Credit and low-income portion of the Child Tax Credit together accounted for 9.2 million fewer individuals living in poverty last year.

We’ve got to keep moving the needle in the right direction, particularly as we have yet to return to pre-recession levels of poverty and incomes. And despite strong progress on the national poverty rate, poverty among children, female-headed families, African-Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, and people with disabilities remains dramatically higher than the overall national rate.

But the big takeaway from yesterday’s data that we should all be shouting about is that we know we can make great progress in cutting poverty—if we make the right choices. Now is the time to double down on the policies we know make a difference, such as making job-creating investments in infrastructure, research, and education; raising the minimum wage and further strengthening tax credits for working families; ensuring paid leave, childcare, and fair schedules, as well as closing the gender wage gap; protecting and strengthening vital safety net programs; and removing barriers to employment for people with criminal records and their families, and workers with disabilities.

Today we should all celebrate the progress we are finally making. But tomorrow, we must use this news to inform the work we do together in the months and years ahead. Now is the time to recommit to making the right choices so that we don’t turn back.

Two Census reports—the Current Population Survey and the American Community Survey—are critical resources for advocates, researchers, journalists, and policymakers alike. They provide rich information on issues that impact people’s health and economic wellbeing, ranging from their living situations, to public benefits usage, to how much money they earn.

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These data, which are for 2015, inform us about what is working to cut poverty and reduce inequality, and how we might do better from a public policy perspective. Here are four key trends wonks will be examining closely:

Incomes are rising—likely for minimum wage workers, too

Some researchers are forecasting that real median household income might see the largest one-year jump in more than a decade. Low-wage workers should see a rise, too—especially in states that raised their minimum wage. This increase is particularly important for women, who make up nearly two-thirds of all minimum wage workers.

Rising wages, particularly for low-wage workers, could mean that this is the year we learn that the gender wage gap among full-time workers—which stood at women earning 79 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts—finally broke the 80 cent-barrier. (Not quite shattering this particular glass ceiling, but moving a step closer!)

Anti-poverty advocates will also examine these data to see if the income gains will reach families in deep poverty—those who have incomes of less than half the poverty line (approximately $12,000 annually, for a family of four).

Don’t kid yourself—racial and gender inequalities are alive and well

Any improvement in the poverty rate and the gender wage gap is critical, but we’re a long way from widespread economic equality. For example, the wage gap for women of color is severe: Last year, African American women typically earned only 60 cents, Native American women 59 cents, and Hispanic women 55 cents, for every dollar earned by their white Non-Hispanic male counterparts.

These gender and racial disparities apply to poverty rates, too. Hispanics and African Americans experienced poverty rates about 2.5 times higher last year than white Non-Hispanics. Women are also more likely to face poverty, as are individuals born in a foreign country, persons with disabilities, and single-parent families.

There is a hidden story in these data about who is more likely to be poor and paid unfairly that wonks and others need to shine a light on.

The data are seriously flawed—especially for LGBTQ people

Every year this Census release sparks conversation about how the stats themselves could be improved. Two topics come up repeatedly: The flawed way that we measure poverty and the shocking lack of data about LGBTQ people.

There is widespread agreement that the federal poverty line—$24,300 for a family of four in 2016—is far too low, which means many more Americans are experiencing serious economic hardship than are deemed officially “poor.” This disconnect isn’t surprising, considering the Official Poverty Measure (OPM) was developed more than half a century ago. A lot of things have improved since then—cars, phones, computers, Americans’ appreciation of soccer—but the OPM hasn’t, even as families’ needs and spending patterns have changed dramatically.

The OPM also fails to account for numerous public policies that relieve hardship. This is one reason why many wonks are fans of the Census Bureau’s alternative Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM).

The SPM includes income households receive through assistance programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which lifted 4.7 million people above the poverty line in 2014; as well as tax credits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit, which together lifted 9.8 million people out of poverty in 2014. The SPM also incorporates some of households’ necessary expenditures, such as clothing and utilities, and geographic variation in housing costs.

While these poverty measurements are less than ideal, they are far better than having almost no data at all—as is the case for members of the LGBTQ community. The lack of sexual orientation and gender identity data in these data sets is glaring, given that the limited data we do have demonstrate that LGBTQ individuals face higher poverty rates than many other communities. Since funding for anti-poverty initiatives often depends upon being able to show that economic need exists, this dearth of data can prevent the LGBTQ community from receiving help even when there is a clear need.

We must redouble our efforts to ensure we collect much-needed data on the LGBTQ community while also working to reform the way we are collecting and measuring poverty data.

Public policy choices reduce or exacerbate poverty, inequality, and hardship

Last year the Census data demonstrated the huge impact the Affordable Care Act had on Americans’ health care coverage, as uninsured rates fell to a historic low with declines in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. This year wonks anticipate a new low in the uninsurance rate—perhaps even below 9 percent—though it would be even lower if more states expanded Medicaid coverage.

Next week’s release will also show how other smart social programs are effectively reducing poverty. For example, last year’s SPM data revealed that without Social Security fully half of American seniors would have been poor, and that without refundable tax credits, nearly 1 in 4 children would have fallen below the poverty line as well. This evidence has fueled increasing calls from advocates and policymakers to strengthen and expand Social Security, refundable tax credits, and other key safety net programs.

Wonks look forward to continuing to assess our public policy choices based on this year’s data.  We already know a lot about what to do to reduce hardship, boost economic mobility, and increase opportunity.  The new Census data can help us move in the right direction—if we ask the right questions, and look for the answers.

And I can’t lie, one of my favorite parts of the Olympics is learning the athletes’ backstories. Commentators have botched some of this year’s big stories—NBC’s announcers credited Katinka Hosszú’s husband with her record-breaking success, and refused to acknowledge that Simone Biles’ adoptive parents are, in fact, her parents—but the athletes themselves are amazing. Their stories underscore the adversity many athletes—especially those who come from low-income or less privileged backgrounds—have faced to make the team. And they showcase the diversity of American families.

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Far too many Americans, including policymakers, have a deeply flawed understanding of American families—largely informed by historical narratives that were never really true—that privileges a certain kind of family. That’s why highlighting the diversity of families of the Olympic athletes is invaluable. It’s one of the few times immigrant families, single mother families, families of color, LGBT families, and people with disabilities and their families are lauded and cheered by their nation.

Here are five Olympians whose personal stories highlight—and honor—the diversity of modern American families:

1.   Simone Biles

Simone Biles is a gymnastics phenom, and arguably the breakout star of the Olympics—she has already won three gold medals in Rio and is poised to win more before the end of the games. As a child, Biles and her sister spent time in foster care before they were adopted more than a decade ago. Since Biles and her sister were already related to their adoptive parents, her family was formed through what is often called kinship or relative adoption—just one of many ways adoptions bring families together. Biles’ story highlights the fact that, as her father said, adoption “is a wonderful thing.”

2.   Carlos Balderas

Carlos Balderas’ father took him to a boxing gym as punishment for fighting when he was 7 years old. Now, after years of coaching by his father and uncle, Balderas is one the U.S.’s top boxers. He’s also a first generation Mexican-American whose grandfather worked—and at times, slept—in strawberry fields trying to earn enough money to bring his family to America. Balderas said, “My family came from nothing… It feels like, this is sort of a way to pay them back.”

3.   Elena Delle Donne

Basketball star Elena Delle Donne is a rookie Olympian, and one of 43 LGBT athletes representing the U.S. in Rio. She’s also the proud sister of Lizzie, who is deaf and blind and has cerebral palsy and autism. Delle Donne acknowledges the challenges of having a close family member with a disability but also celebrates the joys, writing that Lizzie “inspires me…[and] has taught me more than anyone in my life.”

4.   Elizabeth Baker

Paratriathlete Elizabeth Baker will be representing the U.S. at the Paralympic games in Rio in September. Baker, who has a visual impairment, only started doing triathlons in 2004. When her eyesight began deteriorating in college Baker didn’t want to be underestimated: “I didn’t want anyone to count me out because they thought I couldn’t do something; I wanted to make those decisions.” Baker will be cheered on by her spouse and two children, whose support she credits as integral to her success.

5.   Michael Phelps

Michael Phelps, history’s most decorated Olympian, is a household name—and his mom, Debbie Phelps, is nearly as famous for her enthusiastic support. Raising Michael and his sisters as a single mom, she’s been on hand for countless victories over the years. This year, though, the Phelps cheering section looks at little different—it includes his fiancée, Nicole Johnson, and their son Boomer. Phelps’ take on becoming a new dad just months before the games? “It’s still crazy…it’s just awesome.”

These athletes—and many others like them—are a credit to their families and their country on the world’s biggest stage. Their diverse backgrounds clearly demonstrate there is no one right way to be a family—and that the constellation of people who love and support you can take a lot of shapes.

I’m not crying, you’re crying.

Families across the country are getting ready to celebrate Father’s Day this weekend. For some people this might conjure a Mad Men-like image—a hands-off Don Draper barbecuing while he leaves the child-rearing to Betty Draper, a stay-at-home mom—the kind of “traditional” family conservatives frequently hold up as the perfect ideal.  But in America today, that image simply doesn’t reflect reality.

Here are five things you should know about the more than 70 million dads in the nation:

1. Fathers today are more involved. They are more likely to be directly involved with their children than dads of previous generations. Today’s dads also spend substantially more time on housework and childcare than their fathers did, although women still do the lion’s share of chores and parenting.

2. Fathers today want more time with their children. Even though dads are more involved with their children than ever before, they aren’t satisfied with their current situation—half report that they have a difficult time balancing family and work, and nearly half say they spend too little time with their children.  In fact, one-third of all fathers don’t give themselves high marks when it comes to parenting.

3. Family circumstances are changing for fathers. The share of married, stay-at-home dads—while still small—has nearly tripled in the last 20 years. There are also 2.4 million fathers who are raising children on their own—more than ten times as many as there were in 1950. Fathers are far more likely to share the breadwinner role than they did in the past, too. In short, there has been a proliferation in the diversity in parenting situations.

4. Today’s families are breaking down stereotypes and redefining fatherhood. Some “fathers” are in fact grandfathers—roughly 1 million grandfathers are primarily responsible for their grandchildren. And young fathers are shedding decades of stigma so they can parent with dignity—without shame and with equal access to the economic, educational, and social supports they and their families need to thrive. And tens of thousands of two-dad families will celebrate a double Father’s Day this weekend.

5. Today’s public policies are especially harmful to certain fathers. Punitive criminal justice policies have left some fathers—especially men of color—struggling to raise their kids while incarcerated, or confronting unnecessary barriers to opportunity posed by having a criminal record—such as difficulties finding employment or housing. Draconian immigration policies have torn families apart, leaving children thousands of miles and years away from reuniting with their parents. Inadequate support for adult children with disabilities leaves families struggling to make ends meet for decades, well into the child’s adulthood.

Modern fatherhood comes many forms. So instead of relying on antiquated policies that fit outdated images of fathers and families, we must advance contemporary pro-family policies, including workplace policies like paid sick leave and fair scheduling practices that enable dads to better balance family and work; comprehensive criminal justice reform that breaks down barriers to opportunity; immigration policies that allow families to come out of the shadows and thrive; and economic improvements like raising the minimum wage, access to higher education, and affordable, high-quality childcare that help families achieve the American Dream.

You know Dad doesn’t want another tie this Father’s Day.  He doesn’t want the same old public policies that were created for the Drapers either.