What part of the country is the poorest?

[DubbleT]

Why are most people ignoring the OP's 'adjusted for COL'? Acting like it doesn't make a difference when it does?

If my $11,500 wage buys me the SAME lifestyle as your $12,270 wage buys in a different area of the country I am not MORE poor then you even thought the fed gov't guidelines will deem me as living below poverty level while you do not.
Yes, poverty can be looked at in a number of ways. Blindly going by the arbitrary numbers of the feds without taking COL into account is not the best way to account for real poverty.

[citylove101]

Originally Posted by DubbleT

Why are most people ignoring the OP's 'adjusted for COL'? Acting like it doesn't make a difference when it does?

If my $11,500 wage buys me the SAME lifestyle as your $12,270 wage buys in a different area of the country I am not MORE poor then you even thought the fed gov't guidelines will deem me as living below poverty level while you do not.
Yes, poverty can be looked at in a number of ways. Blindly going by the arbitrary numbers of the feds without taking COL into account is not the best way to account for real poverty.

When the actual dollars involved are so low (In 2014 the federal poverty rate for a family of three is $19,790) I think that worrying about regional cost-of-living adjustments are a bit of a red herring. The quality of life for a poor family is going to suck anywhere. The mother with two kids making $19,790 in New York City is definitely poor. But the mother with two kids in the Mississippi Delta or in Appalachia making $19,790 (if she can even find a job paying that much) will likely be only marginally better off than her lower-earning neighbors and will still be poor, both by official government standards and by the standards of most people around the country.

At these low income levels cost-of-living adjustments by region don't really have a huge affect on day-to-day quality of life. It just sucks to be poor wherever you live.

[DubbleT]

That's not really my point. My point is that you can't say that someone making $xx is worse off than someone making $xxx without taking other factors into consideration, which is exactly what the federal poverty guidelines do. Substitute some other numbers if you want. The guy making 30K here is not worse off than the guy making 50k there if they both afford the same lifestyle. The numbers, by themselves, are pointless. I went with those figures because the $11,670 is poverty level for a single person, but in truth I'd rather live off that in someplace like podunk Mississippi than someplace like NYC, so yes it does make a difference, and it is misleading to say that this flat number is an indication of HOW poor someone is.

[NOLA101]

Originally Posted by DubbleT

Why are most people ignoring the OP's 'adjusted for COL'? Acting like it doesn't make a difference when it does?

Because it doesn't make a difference. The areas with higher COL also have more benefits for the poor.

Why don't poor people from California and New York all move to Mississippi and Arkansas? Because it would be extremely stupid to do so.

The poor are far worse off in MS and AR than in CA and NY, because the cash benefits are much lower, the welfare cutoffs are much stricter, there are no housing subsidies, you need vehicles, minimum wage is lower, etc.

I have lived in many parts of the country, usually making a middle class wage, and I am always befuddled when people make this weird COL claims. If my salary is 70k, it makes no huge difference where I live in the U.S. because the only variable thing is housing cost, and housing varies to fit the market.

If an area has a higher COL (really just meaning more expensive housing; everything else pretty much costs the same in the U.S. whether in Brooklyn or in Delta Mississippi) then people adjust their housing to fit the market reality (so in Brooklyn, you live in little apartments, and in Mississippi you live in ranch houses out in the sticks).

A person making 70k in Brooklyn would not have more disposible income if they moved to rural Mississippi, even though the COL will obviously be higher in Brooklyn (because they compare apples-to-apples when they make COL comparisons, but of course people in the real world don't live apples-to-apples, they live according to their location).

[-StarBright-]

Originally Posted by NOLA101

Because it doesn't make a difference. The areas with higher COL also have more benefits for the poor.Why don't poor people from California and New York all move to Mississippi and Arkansas? Because it would be extremely stupid to do so. If my salary is 70k, it makes no huge difference where I live in the U.S. because the only variable thing is housing cost, and housing varies to fit the market.If an area has a higher COL (really just meaning more expensive housing; everything else pretty much costs the same in the U.S. whether in Brooklyn or in Delta Mississippi) then people adjust their housing to fit the market reality (so in Brooklyn, you live in little apartments, and in Mississippi you live in ranch houses out in the sticks). A person making 70k in Brooklyn would not have more disposible income if they moved to rural Mississippi, even though the COL will obviously be higher in Brooklyn (because they compare apples-to-apples when they make COL comparisons, but of course people in the real world don't live apples-to-apples, they live according to their location).

This is so wrong that don't know whether to laugh or feel sorry for you.