Being poor in America

[First]

Originally posted by: WHAMPOM

Sliding down the slippery slope from slant artist to complete crank.

He was crank from day one. Not only were the stats not convincing, but he's telling us that Edwards exaggerates the extent to which Americans are poor. Welcome to Politics 101.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: Blackjack200

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Blackjack200

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: ahurtt
It's all relative. The poorest person in America lives like a king compared to the average person in some parts of the world. And yet somehow those people get by.

Of course youre right. Unfortunately many in here cant seem to apply perspective OR comment sense ignore this or just come up with excuses.

Yeah, that or the argument is so specious it's not worth a reply. But what the heck, ahurtt's contention that "somehow these people get by" is simply not true. In the counties he's referring to, people don't get by. They die. In huge numbers. Is that our new standard? If you don't die, you're not poor because you're doing better than citizens of Zambia?

A little exagerated. How many 3rd world country's entry stamps are in YOUR passport? At last count I had 7. And the people are doing fine. When I travel I tend to stay away from the big city tourist shit, and travel to the provinces. One big difference between people in these countries and the US? You dont hear bitching about how the government should give them more. They dont talk about how theyre getting screwed. Theyre the most sincere, loving people you will ever meet. And they get by.

You might want to refresh yourself on the word "generalities".

How touching.

Like I said; they die.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...ies_by_life_expectancy

bonus points for positing that people in "these" countries are the most sincere and loving, implying that people in this country bitch about the government not giving them more, and then suggesting that I brush up on generalities.

Haven't had the chance to travel the world yet (on my to-do list). But I have been into some of the poorest areas in the Eastern United States. Camden, Appalachia, and Detroit to name a few. And based on what I've seen in those areas, the popular, guilt-free characterization of poor in this country being "welfare queens" and living like kings off the Government is laughable.

Seriously...you need to rearrange your "to-do" list. It will change your opinion, your priorities, and your perspective.

Seriously.

 

[shortylickens]

Originally posted by: steppinthrax
I think the most interesting thing about being poor in the US is it's better then being middle class.

In my state (Maryland) when you are low income you get the following benefits.

1. MEAP (Maryland Energy assitance program- subsidizes a large % of your electricity)
2. WIC (Women infants children - free food neccesities like milk, bread, most of it can't be eaten by the mother and infant alone so the family eats it)
3. MCHP (Maryland Children's health program - free medical insurance till 18)
4. Free tution (Based on FAFSA and state GAG -guaranteed access grants which resutls in rebate checks because they commonly over pay or the student dosen't take room/board)
5. EIC (earned income credit - imagine getting a 4K IRS check)
6. Daycare waivers - State sponsored Daycare for single mothers/working morthers.
7. Food Stamps (very low income)
8. Emergency money (a program that offers cash money given to the person in the event the person goes flat broke, used for food etc)

Most of my income goes to med insurance, food and tution for my Masters degree. As well as daycare for my daugter and my mortgage. Afterwards I'm poor. These people who can qualify for these subsidize live like kings. Enroll in college drop completey out and pick up the rebate check. Never accepts that promotion because if they do their income increases and they make less after paying for all those things. Misuse their WIC checks and sell them on the streets. Leave their furnace on all day knowing I'm paying for their electric bill.

There was a time way back in the day when statements like that would make me hostile.
But having worked my way up from about half minimum wage to a decent job (over the past 10 years) at a semiconductor plant, I'd have to say I agree.
Its difficult for me to feel sorry for all these people when they collect assloads of benefits, work about 600 hours a year and keep squeezing out more babies to continue the cycle.
I have to put in at least 2000 hours a year to survive and a lot more if I want to save up so I can go back to college.
The sad thing is that I wont be paying for them just when I'm 28. All that tax money I'm pumping into the government probably wont be there to help me when I retire. SS wont be enough (if I get any) and I wont qualify for special assistance because most of my working life I was above the poverty line.

I think I need to buy some land in Europe or South America right now. Before I retire I need to have a house built on it.

 

[Triumph]

Originally posted by: CitizenKain

Originally posted by: ahurtt
It's all relative. The poorest person in America lives like a king compared to the average person in some parts of the world. And yet somehow those people get by.

I guess cost of living has absolutely nothing to do with anything then does it. I mean, someone in Africa can get by on 4 dollars a year, why can't someone over here do the same, oh wait, its because it costs more to live in America, how do I keep forgetting that?

That's not what he's talking about. Poor people in the US can only have basic cable, but no HBO. Poor people in Africa can't EAT. You don't see the difference? Cost of living doesn't have much to do with it.

 

[JEDI]

Originally posted by: Shivetya
If being ?poor? means (as Edwards claims it does) a lack of nutritious food, adequate warm housing, and clothing for a family, then very few of America?s 37 million official ?poor? people can be regarded as actually poor. Some material hardship does exist in the United States, but, in reality, it is quite restricted in scope and severity.

46 percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.

80 percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, in 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

Only six percent of poor households are overcrowded; two thirds have more than two rooms per person.

The typical poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)

Nearly three quarters of poor households own a car; 31 percent own two or more cars.

97 percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.

78 percent have a VCR or DVD player.

62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.

89 percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a more than a third have an automatic dishwasher.



So, why is this fraud being allowed to continue? Easy, because government officials and certain elite want more and more control to be put in the hands of government and taken away from the voters. Why? Because to they the voters don't understand what the voters need. We are too dumb to understand that they know what we truly need.


Being poor in America isn't exactly what is professed to be.


<In both good and bad economic environments, the typical American poor family with children is supported by only 800 hours of work during a year ? the equivalent of 16 hours of work per week. If work in each family were raised to 2,000 hours per year ? the equivalent of one adult working 40 hours per week throughout the year ? nearly 75 percent of poor children would be lifted out of official poverty.

<As noted above, father absence is another major cause of child poverty. Nearly two thirds of poor children reside in single-parent homes; each year, an additional 1.5 million children are born out of wedlock. If poor mothers married the fathers of their children, nearly three quarters of the nation?s impoverished youth would immediately be lifted out of poverty.

<Yet, although work and marriage are reliable ladders out of poverty, the welfare system perversely remains hostile to both. Major programs such as food stamps, public housing, and Medicaid continue to reward idleness and penalize marriage. If welfare could be turned around to encourage work and marriage, the nation?s remaining poverty could be reduced.



The above points are important. Why? Because the government through its programs (which we the voters are too dumb to understand, just sign and drive) are creating the very situation they claim to be fixing!

Forced birth control for those on govt handouts FTW. eliminate the next gen of poor

btw- welfare has a 5yr max.

 

[ahurtt]

Originally posted by: Triumph

Originally posted by: CitizenKain

Originally posted by: ahurtt
It's all relative. The poorest person in America lives like a king compared to the average person in some parts of the world. And yet somehow those people get by.

I guess cost of living has absolutely nothing to do with anything then does it. I mean, someone in Africa can get by on 4 dollars a year, why can't someone over here do the same, oh wait, its because it costs more to live in America, how do I keep forgetting that?

That's not what he's talking about. Poor people in the US can only have basic cable, but no HBO. Poor people in Africa can't EAT. You don't see the difference? Cost of living doesn't have much to do with it.

Exactly. If you took an American "poor" person, whining and complaining with their hand always out for a handout, and put them in a 3rd world nation that is starving and people actually do die of famine in droves on a daily basis, and made them live there for a month, THEN they would know what it really is to be poor. THEN they would be begging to come back to America. And then maybe just maybe it would dawn on them just how good they really do have it. People who have never witnessed nor experienced true poverty living conditions first hand have NO IDEA what true poverty is. Hence, why I say, it is all relative. As good as you think you are, somebody better always comes along eventually. And as bad as you think you have things, somebody else always has it worse. There is nothing that says anywhere in the Constitution that just because you are living in America that means you are entitled to live the same lifestyle as Donald Trump or Bill Gates. In fact, it irks me to NO END whenever I hear somebody who is angry about the hand life has dealt them say "This is America!" all indignantly as if that fact alone entitles them to some better standard of living than the rest of the world. But you are goddamned lucky to be here whether you realize it or not. Most poor in America probably don't realize it because, due to their poverty, they have had little opportunity to travel and see and be exposed to other parts of the world. Neither have a lot of people on this forum judging by some of the replies. Just because you can't afford to travel the world does not make you poor though. It's all relative. By and large, most of the basic living necessities of the vast majority of people in the US are met. Some places in the world you cannot say that. That is poor.

 

[imported_Tango]

Originally posted by: ahurtt

Originally posted by: Triumph

Originally posted by: CitizenKain

Originally posted by: ahurtt
It's all relative. The poorest person in America lives like a king compared to the average person in some parts of the world. And yet somehow those people get by.

I guess cost of living has absolutely nothing to do with anything then does it. I mean, someone in Africa can get by on 4 dollars a year, why can't someone over here do the same, oh wait, its because it costs more to live in America, how do I keep forgetting that?

That's not what he's talking about. Poor people in the US can only have basic cable, but no HBO. Poor people in Africa can't EAT. You don't see the difference? Cost of living doesn't have much to do with it.

Exactly. If you took an American "poor" person, whining and complaining with their hand always out for a handout, and put them in a 3rd world nation that is starving and people actually do die of famine in droves on a daily basis, and made them live there for a month, THEN they would know what it really is to be poor. THEN they would be begging to come back to America. And then maybe just maybe it would dawn on them just how good they really do have it. People who have never witnessed nor experienced true poverty living conditions first hand have NO IDEA what true poverty is. Hence, why I say, it is all relative. As good as you think you are, somebody better always comes along eventually. And as bad as you think you have things, somebody else always has it worse. There is nothing that says anywhere in the Constitution that just because you are living in America that means you are entitled to live the same lifestyle as Donald Trump or Bill Gates. In fact, it irks me to NO END whenever I hear somebody who is angry about the hand life has dealt them say "This is America!" all indignantly as if that fact alone entitles them to some better standard of living than the rest of the world. But you are goddamned lucky to be here whether you realize it or not. Most poor in America probably don't realize it because, due to their poverty, they have had little opportunity to travel and see and be exposed to other parts of the world. Neither have a lot of people on this forum judging by some of the replies. Just because you can't afford to travel the world does not make you poor though. It's all relative. By and large, most of the basic living necessities of the vast majority of people in the US are met. Some places in the world you cannot say that. That is poor.

You are all confusing two different concepts:

1) Being below the poverty line.

2) By how much you are below the poverty line.

In many sub-Saharan countries not only large shares of the population live below the poverty line, but many people are a lot below the poverty line. Meaning they starve.

Poor people in the US do not starve. In fact, there are many African countries where also poor people do not starve. People in Botswana or Namibia do not starve, still they have quite high percentages of people under the poverty line. Same could be said for Eastern Europe/Former Soviet Union countries.

This has nothing ado with:

1) How many people are poor in America.
2) How poor people live compared to poor people in another country.

It simply means that poor people in America are not in the extremely impoverished/no subsistence sub-category of poverty. Countries that do have this sub-category are in fact few in the world and usually called the fourth world.

 

[ElFenix]

part of the problem with the poverty statistic is that it treats income = consumption. if being poor means having trouble putting food on the table (which is what most would think), then we're measuring the wrong thing.

 

[GattoDiChimica]

The sad thing is that the "poor" who abuse the welfare system make it harder for us to respect the fact that there is an actual poverty problem in some parts of America. There are people living in America who can't afford food or are homeless. Granted, it's not as bad as it is in some countries. However, it sickens me to see someone pay for groceries with food stamps while talking on their iPhone and carrying their designer purse. Some people are just abusing the system. Americans have gotten it into their heads that a cell phone and a color tv are necessities and not luxuries.

 

[Rainsford]

"Lies, damned lies, and statistics"

With the appropriate redefinition of "poor", the average in any number of areas can be whatever you want it to be...that does not mean that truly poor people don't exist. Of course THAT point would be extremely easy to argue if there were any facts to back it up. But since there aren't, it's the typical political hand waving.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: GattoDiChimica
The sad thing is that the "poor" who abuse the welfare system make it harder for us to respect the fact that there is an actual poverty problem in some parts of America. There are people living in America who can't afford food or are homeless. Granted, it's not as bad as it is in some countries. However, it sickens me to see someone pay for groceries with food stamps while talking on their iPhone and carrying their designer purse. Some people are just abusing the system. Americans have gotten it into their heads that a cell phone and a color tv are necessities and not luxuries.

I don't think that is as widespread a problem as conservatives would like us to believe. Those examples are highlighted because they give the false impression that nobody is really poor, they are just spoiled and lazy. When someone talks like that, they aren't arguing for shifting the help to the truly needy, they are talking about scrapping the entire system. There are obviously different levels of "poor", just as there are different levels of being "rich". And I hope that the smartass conservatives in this thread realize that the term "average" implies people BELOW that particular line. "See, some poor people aren't dying in a ditch" is not a very good argument for any particular point of view, since not only is "owning a VCR" not the be-all and end-all of the American dream, but a rather large number of people evidently don't even come close to meeting THAT low bar. Yes, poor people in Africa are significantly worse off on average than they are in America...but, and I feel like I have to say this WAY too often to righties, is that REALLY where we want to set our standards? Should we consider the fight against poverty to be a success as long as not very many people are starving to death?

 

[Blackjack200]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Blackjack200

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Blackjack200

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: ahurtt
It's all relative. The poorest person in America lives like a king compared to the average person in some parts of the world. And yet somehow those people get by.

Of course youre right. Unfortunately many in here cant seem to apply perspective OR comment sense ignore this or just come up with excuses.

Yeah, that or the argument is so specious it's not worth a reply. But what the heck, ahurtt's contention that "somehow these people get by" is simply not true. In the counties he's referring to, people don't get by. They die. In huge numbers. Is that our new standard? If you don't die, you're not poor because you're doing better than citizens of Zambia?

A little exagerated. How many 3rd world country's entry stamps are in YOUR passport? At last count I had 7. And the people are doing fine. When I travel I tend to stay away from the big city tourist shit, and travel to the provinces. One big difference between people in these countries and the US? You dont hear bitching about how the government should give them more. They dont talk about how theyre getting screwed. Theyre the most sincere, loving people you will ever meet. And they get by.

You might want to refresh yourself on the word "generalities".

How touching.

Like I said; they die.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...ies_by_life_expectancy

bonus points for positing that people in "these" countries are the most sincere and loving, implying that people in this country bitch about the government not giving them more, and then suggesting that I brush up on generalities.

Haven't had the chance to travel the world yet (on my to-do list). But I have been into some of the poorest areas in the Eastern United States. Camden, Appalachia, and Detroit to name a few. And based on what I've seen in those areas, the popular, guilt-free characterization of poor in this country being "welfare queens" and living like kings off the Government is laughable.

Seriously...you need to rearrange your "to-do" list. It will change your opinion, your priorities, and your perspective.

Seriously.

Seriously...posts like this will make you the DM Cowen of the right. Nonsensical considering you have no concept of my "to-do" list except that to travel the world is on it. Even if you did, your post contains nothing but argumentum ad hominum.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: Blackjack200

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Blackjack200

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Blackjack200

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: ahurtt
It's all relative. The poorest person in America lives like a king compared to the average person in some parts of the world. And yet somehow those people get by.

Of course youre right. Unfortunately many in here cant seem to apply perspective OR comment sense ignore this or just come up with excuses.

Yeah, that or the argument is so specious it's not worth a reply. But what the heck, ahurtt's contention that "somehow these people get by" is simply not true. In the counties he's referring to, people don't get by. They die. In huge numbers. Is that our new standard? If you don't die, you're not poor because you're doing better than citizens of Zambia?

A little exagerated. How many 3rd world country's entry stamps are in YOUR passport? At last count I had 7. And the people are doing fine. When I travel I tend to stay away from the big city tourist shit, and travel to the provinces. One big difference between people in these countries and the US? You dont hear bitching about how the government should give them more. They dont talk about how theyre getting screwed. Theyre the most sincere, loving people you will ever meet. And they get by.

You might want to refresh yourself on the word "generalities".

How touching.

Like I said; they die.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...ies_by_life_expectancy

bonus points for positing that people in "these" countries are the most sincere and loving, implying that people in this country bitch about the government not giving them more, and then suggesting that I brush up on generalities.

Haven't had the chance to travel the world yet (on my to-do list). But I have been into some of the poorest areas in the Eastern United States. Camden, Appalachia, and Detroit to name a few. And based on what I've seen in those areas, the popular, guilt-free characterization of poor in this country being "welfare queens" and living like kings off the Government is laughable.

Seriously...you need to rearrange your "to-do" list. It will change your opinion, your priorities, and your perspective.

Seriously.

Seriously...posts like this will make you the DM Cowen of the right. Nonsensical considering you have no concept of my "to-do" list except that to travel the world is on it. Even if you did, your post contains nothing but argumentum ad hominum.

How is it non sensical when I am clearly pointing out how wrong you are? You base your opinion on limited experience. With something as important as your views on this country, I am not out of line saying you need to bump up your travel plans a little. It's people like you who cry about how bad the poor have it in this country when you have never experienced poor in your entire life. If I may quote one of Moonbeam's sigs, ""You limit the scope you limit the findings.." LunarRay"

 

[Siddhartha]

OP,

It is time to develop a definition of what is being poor in the US.

Being homeless
Hunger
Can not afford health care
Can not afford clothes

There are government programs that address these issues but I think if you are homeless, hungry, can not afford health care and more than one set of clothes you are poor.

 

[IGBT]

..it's the misery milkers in the media that espouse the liberal concept of rich and poor.

 

[1EZduzit]

Originally posted by: IGBT
..it's the misery milkers in the media that espouse the liberal concept of rich and poor.

Obviously if it wasn't for the media and the liberals we would all have health care, fantastic retirement programs and very large bank accounts.