Study: U.S. poverty rate decreased over past half-century thanks to safety-net programs

.....but is this approach really decreasing poverty? Would poor people who rely on these programs not call themselves poor? This is an interesting article in the Washington Post about research from Columbia University, which addresses the issue of whether Congress should reduce the safety net. This is the most striking piece of data in the whole article: 

While the government has helped keep poverty at bay, the economy by itself has failed to improve the lives of the very poor over the past 50 years. Without taking into account the role of government policy, more Americans — 29 percent — would be in poverty today, compared with 27 percent in 1967. 

It would also be interesting to know how many years people are poor and why, i.e. what percentage are poor for five years or less, what percentage are born into poverty and never escape. Are there communities that have eradicated poverty? Is that a goal of a trauma-informed community? 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/study-us-poverty-rate-decreased-over-past-half-century-thanks-to-safety-net-programs/2013/12/09/9322c834-60f3-11e3-94ad-004fefa61ee6_story.html