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Not necessarily. A hallmark of the poor is they tend to spend a large amount of thier resources on entertainment. It's not unusual around the poor school district where I live to see children with all manner of electronic gadgets, four wheelers, and phones, and horses while living in shacks.
We're talking apples and oranges here. The great rise in poverty has not been because there are more poor people who were poor before, but from the collapsing economy and people who had jobs and things and still have the things but no job. As a previous poster said, its hard to sell 'stuff'. The newly poor do not go out and buy toys for the kids, they try to keep the lights on, buy food, and deal in necessities. They juggle bills. Toys are the bottom of the list.
When I was married, we lived on my husband's disability and the dribble from our home business. You would not have known it from the toys my son had, (not electronics, but kid toys) because we shopped thrift shops and used sales. He didn't care. So even if you see lots of toys it doesn't mean they broke the bank to buy them.
We need to stop *assuming* that because someone has a phone they are spendtrift. Or if they have a nice car they bought it instead of food. Nobody can look and tell if the family was poor five years ago or just had the bottom fall out yesterday. When the money isn't there for food, morgage/rent (shelter), and basic utilities, what you have left over is immaterial. If you have to decide what not to pay its a condition of poverty even if a month ago it wasn't like that.
We need to start recognizing that *people* are hurting and lose the kneejerk reactions. Especially in this time, I still wonder just how much of that is fear fueled given that most of the middle class people trying to get food stamps and assistance did not ever think it could happen to them. Guess what? It can. So how much of that is deflected/can't possibly happen to me fear?
You are free to believe what ever you choose, but the facts remain.
Poverty is considered less than $22,000 a year.
It is true that we have a better standard of living than 90% of the world, but it is not uncommon in the rest of the world to have families living off $2 a day.
I think your prejudices have altered your opinions. When the unemployment rate was 4% anyone who was physically able to work could find a job. Today that is not the case.
There are millions of families who for the first time in there lives cannot find work. With government cutbacks and layoffs coming, we are going to see a lot more of this going forward. Be careful not to judge the unemployed too harshly, as one day you may find yourself one of them.
Another "be careful" warning.
I will NEVER be in that situation.
Now, on to the stats....you can live on $22,000 a year. You just need to live within your means.
For every person that feels they have a "right" to something, there is someone else who has the "responsibility" to pay for it.
Again, a statement showing prejudice and stereotyping. There is nothing wrong with single parent homes, many of them are MUCH better providers that two-parent homes. And many single parents have more income than two parents together.
The existence of single-parent homes that provide well for children doesn't counter the fact that a huge problem with children raised in poverty relates directly to single parents, and it isn't prejudiced or stereotyping to acknowledge it.
There are 50 States in the United States plus another 190+ States in the world. They can do what Neanderthals had the common sense to do and that is hump it to another location where they can thrive and prosper.
"
Your hypothesis only worked until about 36,000 years ago, when Neanderthals, humping it with their common sense, stopped thriving and prospering and became extinct.
Our poor in America have a higher standard of living than 90% of the rest of the world.
When their parents have no cell phones, ipods, bling, etc. then i'll be a believer.
If it is true, obama's doing a hell of a job!
Learn to think............American rich have more money than many countries combined so what's your point? Yes American poor have it better than some African living in a mud hut taking a cow **** shower. But how do they compare to the richest Americans. IT"S ALL RELATIVE! That is the POINT! Got it? Good!
...it isn't prejudiced or stereotyping to acknowledge it.
That's true. I don't know why so many people think when someone acknowledges something exists, that the person is engaging in what they are acknowledging?
I had no idea Bill (or is that you Warren???) trolled these forums!
For the rest of us? Most of us will never have the millions of dollars in cash reserves it would take to weather(and pay out-of-pocket for), say cancer, or a premature birth, coupled with the loss of a job and the denial of insurance. Sadly, those things really ~do~ happen.
That is why we have a government, it's why we pay taxes. It's why we have a somewhat (ahem) civil society.
I'm always amazed at those who fear "big gubermint" so fiercely, are instead willing to trust their live so easily, so completely, to "big bidness" instead.
Because we all know corporations do the Right Thing, All of the Time. Right?
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