What this graph shows is how much people receive from earnings (wages, salaries, self-employment income, and farm income) at each percentile of the earnings distribution. As you move from left to right on the graph, you notice that every percentile has zero dollars in earnings until you get to the forty-ninth percentile. This means that around 49 percent of people in society have no labor income. That is, they are nonearners. [...]
Around 46 percent of nonearners are children below the age of eighteen. Another 24 percent are elderly people aged sixty-five and above. Ten percent are disabled. Six percent are students. Eight percent are family caregivers. With some exceptions, these are not people who could or should be activated into the labor force. [...]
In both graphs, children, elderly, disabled people, and students make up around 70 percent of the poor. If you add in carers and those already fully employed, the number goes to around 90 percent. There is room to activate some of these folks into the labor market, especially carers through the provision of child care and paid leave benefits. But for the most part, the poor are people who cannot and should not work.
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