In Angus Deaton’s January 24 New York Times op-ed, The U.S. Can No Longer Hide From Its Deep Poverty Problem, the Nobel Prize winning economist rightly pointed to the scourge of absolute poverty in many parts of the United States. He also cited new evidence that absolute poverty standards should be adjusted according to need, as well as to take into account price differences across countries.

The controversial part of Deaton’s article is his conjecture that “for years…the needs of poor Americans (or poor Europeans) have received little priority relative to the needs of poor Africans or Asians.” The implication, drawn from his own personal experience with giving, is that funds should be reallocated from international aid (known as official development assistance or ODA) toward meeting urgent domestic needs.

While we may not be able to pinpoint why certain countries tend to be generous both at home and abroad, what we do know is that spending money on poverty programs, whether domestic or international, requires an empathy and understanding that public resources are well spent on such activities. The arguments underlying these programs, therefore, apply equally to all kinds of social spending.

Furthermore, one must consider the proportional trade-offs between domestic social spending and international aid. “The U.S. has enough resources to address both domestic and global poverty.” According to OECD data, the average developed country spends 60 times as much on domestic social spending as on aid.

Both aid and domestic social spending should be seen as investments that yield considerable social returns, but both are more often than not characterized as charitable giveaways with no benefit to the rest of society. Breaking this mindset is one the challenges facing the internationally agreed-upon Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with their emphasis on “leave no one behind.”

Read the full article about foreign aid and domestic spending by Homi Kharas and Lorenz Noe at Brookings.