We are told that 30 million Americans live in poverty, but what exactly does “poverty” mean in America. Heritage’s Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield examine the record and report that it’s not quite what you might think:
According to the government’s own survey data, in 2005, the average household defined as poor by the government lived in a house or apartment equipped with air conditioning and cable TV. The family had a car (a third of the poor have two or more cars). For entertainment, the household had two color televisions, a DVD player, and a VCR.
If there were children in the home (especially boys), the family had a game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation. In the kitchen, the household had a microwave, refrigerator, and an oven and stove. Other household conveniences included a washer and dryer, ceiling fans, a cordless phone, and a coffee maker.
The home of the average poor family was in good repair and not overcrowded. In fact, the typical poor American had more living space than the average European. (Note: That’s average European, not poor European.) The average poor family was able to obtain medical care when needed. When asked, most poor families stated they had had sufficient funds during the past year to meet all essential needs.
By its own report, the family was not hungry. The average intake of protein, vitamins, and minerals by poor children is indistinguishable from children in the upper middle class and, in most cases, is well above recommended norms. Poor boys today at ages 18 and 19 are actually taller and heavier than middle-class boys of similar age in the late 1950s and are a full one inch taller and 10 pounds heavier than American soldiers who fought in World War II. The major dietary problem facing poor Americans is eating too much, not too little; the majority of poor adults, like most Americans, are overweight.
The authors argue persuasively that the President and advocates like Marion Wright Edelman blur the distinction between poverty and deprivation and that the new standards advocated by the President deal not with ameliorating actual deprivation . They are income redistribution measures, plain and simple. Distinguishing between those who meet the current or proposed new “poverty ” test and those actually living in deprivation may shrink the one trillion dollar poverty budget but is the only way to ease the plight of those actually living in deprivation:
Those who are without food or homeless will find no comfort in the fact that their condition is relatively infrequent. Their distress is real and a serious concern.
Nonetheless, wise public policy cannot be based on misinformation or misunderstanding. Anti-poverty policy must be based on an accurate assessment of actual living conditions and the causes of deprivation. In the long term, grossly exaggerating the extent and severity of material deprivation in the U.S. will benefit neither the poor, the economy, nor society as a whole.
This is the fundamental problem with welfare and social security. The belief that it should provide a high standard of living rather than a floor. A bottom line that provides for decent housing, food, heat and basic necessities. Even Social Security should be a bottom line rather than payments being based on income on which taxes were paid. Somewhat unfair to the higher earners but that is all the rage these days anyway. (of course, the responsible will own their home and thus be ahead by saving on rent in their old age, which is how housing is an investment)
A huge difference in owning a home and owing on a home! Few of the last few generations will “own” much of anything when they retire….except for owning huge debt. Bankruptcy courts are doing just fine as usual since the 60′s. Buy and buy and buy, build up more debt than you can pay off in a lifetime and file bankruptcy. Thats the American way of the newer generations.
For millions of older working American’s of the 50′s and 60′s reaching retirement age, they made on average around $600 a month and received a $10k retirement insuraqnce policy….and and a ham or a turkey if you worked for folks like the Farmers Co-op.
So many college educated their kids who did have veterans benefits, with the kids working to help in many cases, had clear titles to their cars and homes and some even had measly savings with virtually no debt….if any!
That is not the America of today though millions in retirement still, worked for measly incomes and combined with their little social security checks and medicare cannot keep up with the grossly inflated values of goods and services. The area where we live most of the time in retirement; a very small rural community, you can count on two hands the number of people who draw anywhere near the national average of social security ($1,100) I believe)…..all life long productive laborers. Being near a major military installation has driven rent of moble homes to an average of $750 and a small older stick house to about $900 a month. Forget buying a home for most locals as the military folks are willing to drive 40 miles one way to work and have driven the prices of new construction far, far beyond the economic ability of the average local joe who doesn’t own a home. Big cancer city or rural, millions of American’s are in that boat!
Show me the starving Americans. We’re ridiculed by the world for being chronically obese yet we somehow have a poverty problem. If you’re fat, you’re not poor.
The system isn’t geared to deal with people with actual deprivation. Case in point: public housing. If you suddenly find yourself homeless, the HUD-sponsored public housing programs are of no use at all because there are multi-year waiting lists. The system exists to subsidize a group of regular clients, not to deal with emergencies. Once you’re in, it’s hard for them to remove you.
It’s not designed to help the deprived, it’s designed to create a clientele. If you’re in real trouble, do to the private charities. They might actually be able to help.
this is a very important point which needs to be addressed by gop “leaders”
milton friedman effectively used this point to demonstrate how capitalism improves the living conditions for the poor better than any economic system that has ever been discovered in human history
hell, many places in the world are still without plumbing; most of america’s “poor” would be living like roman aristocracy back in the day; plumbing; heat/air conditioning, showers/baths, food, etc….
One could probably count the number of times Obama has used the word ‘poverty’ on both hands if that many times.
Obama is far more about the middle class achieving equality with those demons of the upper class. How ironic!
Seriously! How many times has anybody heard Obama utter the word poverty in any context?
["The major dietary problem facing poor Americans is eating too much, not too little; the majority of poor adults, like most Americans, are overweight."]
You can always tell the folks that have never had to struggle with buying groceries. Putting aside why anybody is poor, the poor can only afford the worst of the worst nutritious foodstuffs.
I wouldn’t attempt to correlate poor folks eating to much to their weight anymore than I would attempt to credit diet to the advance of average height. Quality of nutrient intake and the health of the digestive system, not quantity is what most poor and even many of the wealthy folks suffer from. But, I’ll leave it to the metabolic and nutrient utilization experts around here to debate this.
Where are you Howard?
I think an important part of this is poor nutritional habits and choices. Asian grocery stores in this area offer plenty of healthful, unprocessed food choices for very little money.
Clarice…For those of economic means I would certainly agree with you that it is a conditioned matter of choice for poor nutrition. However, for millions of legitimate poor who’s incomes don’t come up to the national means line and cannot stay up with inflation, it is not a choice for them. The cheapest food choices are fat and sugar riddled and processed with little nutritional values. It doesn’t take much poor nutrition to affect ones optimum digestive system and nutrient untilization. When that happens a whole chain of bad things begin to happen.
The one-size-fits-all balanced nutritional requirements are established as a minimum baseline determined to be maintenance essential. You can find the validation for this through the National Research Council for Food and Nutrition and their counterparts around the world. Though the processes of animal nutrition essentially paralles all the complex disciplines of human nutrition I try not to proclaim myself as a human nutritionist expert. All I will say, is that ones weight doesn’t ‘necessarily’ correlate to quantity of intake or even quality of intake. There are many other variables.