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Teenage girls knew they could get a check from the government if they had babies and so they had them, often more than one. The law discouraged fathers from living with, much less marrying, the mothers of their children and so legions of "single mothers" became the norm, and the lack of male leadership in the home contributed to additional cycles of poverty, addicting new generations to government.
The so-called poor today would find the average upper class or middle class home of the 70s to be unbearable. Most so-called poor have cell phones, air conditioning, cable tv, microwave ovens, video game players, clothes they buy new, plenty of food.
Thats bs except for the cell phones. Many do have cell phones because if you are looking for work or working day to day you have to have a cell phone. Employers expect someone to have a phone. Poor people shop at the goodwill and garage sales. They dont have new clothes and all the stuff they have are hand me downs. They stand in long lines for food bank and meal programs to supplement their snap. Things were actually better in the 70's. I bet more people rely on relatives now for supplemental support than back then. One indicator of how bad the economy is, is that the birth rate is the lowest it been since the depression. I live in a neighborhood that had 30-40 kids in the 70's and now we have one child.
Teenage girls knew they could get a check from the government if they had babies and so they had them, often more than one. The law discouraged fathers from living with, much less marrying, the mothers of their children and so legions of "single mothers" became the norm, and the lack of male leadership in the home contributed to additional cycles of poverty, addicting new generations to government.
But thats over just like the 70's and 80's are over. I live in Tucson and with a heavy hispanic population the schools have lost 13,000 student in 12 years. They closed 13 schools here and could have closed 19. Teenage girls do not have kids like they did in 1955. Its becoming very rare to see young mothers pregnant pushing around a stroller/cart with a child . In a lot of cities in America its like someone set off a neutron bomb and all the children disappeared.
Cable TV is the one that really gets me. I recommended ditching the $60 per month cable TV for free TV (using a small, flat indoor antenna that delivers perfectly clear/usually in HD free TV channels such as NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, the CW, PBS, Me TV, THiS TV, Bounce, Create TV, and several other free channels) to a "poor" relative who was complaining about her food stamp reduction (she's only in her 40s), and she basically said thanks, but no thanks – I gotta have my cable TV.
Most, but not all, poor people are poor for a reason – they make poor decisions which usually yield poor results. Every "poor" person whom I personally know has made and continues to make poor choices even when advised to make alternative choices (which usually require hard work, sacrifice, compromise, self-discipline, and a smidgen of common sense).
Some people are genuinely "hungry" and some people just "want to be fed." Most, but not all, "poor" people just want to be fed, in my opinion.
The so-called poor today would find the average upper class or middle class home of the 70s to be unbearable. Most so-called poor have cell phones, air conditioning, cable tv, microwave ovens, video game players, clothes they buy new, plenty of food.
??? Poor people usually don't get to choose whether they have air conditioning, that's a decision of the landlord or homebuilder. Microwave ovens are often included in rental units. Whether poor people have those other things depends largely on how socially connected and/or scammy they are. Poor people can get a lot of that stuff from people they know (boyfriends, baby daddies, parents, etc), generally they are not buying that stuff with welfare money. The usual scam is to get a rental subsidy and let your boyfriend move in, who then spends on you some of the money he doesn't have to spend on rent.
The vast majority of the so-called poor aren't living in tents. Millions live in air-condioned, roomy and comfortable Section 8 and other government provided housing.
And very few of those are non-elderly childless adults,
A lot of poor live better than lower and middle, middle class. The poor get all kinds of assistance and don't have the debt the lower and middle class do and have pretty much the same things.
The lower and middle class make too much to get help but too little to live better.
Are the childless poor getting stuff I don't know about?
And those with little material wealth do have better quality of living.
In the US it's all about showing your bling.
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Originally Posted by tinman01
Define a good quality of living.
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Originally Posted by hnsq
I live in an 'up and coming' neighborhood in a major east coast city. Many of my neighbors are poor. They have pretty good lifestyles. Their quality of living is better than mine was when I was saving money to buy a house.
A good quality of living would be one where you don't have to fear for your life.
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