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Most of you don't want the poor to have anything.....ever! Cell phones are given to many women through non-profits so they can escape their abusive boyfriends! Everyone needs access to cell phones, since you can't just run down to the local payphone anymore.
Ummm,no they don't...
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People have emergencies, children need to be tracked down, you need to be able to find jobs etc.
How did all those things happen back in BC(Before Cellphone) days???
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Cable is usually the only thing available in their rental because landlords don't have antennans on their buildings because of codes.
So??Is TV now some sort of fundamental human right????Actually,it probably is to most Americans....
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Get serious we live in a new millenium....what you are saying is people living "above their means" is as basic as the American lives are. Even people living in the Appalachians, that are serial generational welfare rags....have more than those living in 3rd world countries. Thank god!
And they still will be living better than 99% of the world without a cellphone and cable TV...
An individual "dorming" at college should not be ever included in a discussion of classification of poorness. Typically, a full time student is at least one generation away from understanding what poor is. However, later in life, and possibly without parents who own their homes, from single mother families, and responsible for actually paying student loans, they very well may become "poor" as independent adults.
[/b]QUOTE=robbobobbo;20088750]I'm glad that the standard of living for the poor is improving, and that the poor aren't living in abject misery.
Now, time for critical thinking instead of knee-jerk reaction:
The report is on the living standards and amenities of those Americans that the US Census Bureau classifies as "poor" due to income. It is not a report on welfare recipients.
Hardly all people who are classified as poor are also welfare recipients.
The report does not even explore how many people receiving some form of welfare are also living with home computers, XBoxes, Playstations, DVD players, etc.
We have no way of knowing how the average poor person acquired these amenities. The report does find that most of them obtain them about 12 years after the rest of American society typically adopts them. Horrors - how dare a poor person have the luxury of a VCR 12 years after all the rest of us have using them, the prices have dropped to nearly nothing, and there is a glut of used merchandise available.
Speaking of used, I see a lot of older model computers, TVs, phones, etc in thrift stores. Then there are yard sales, Craigslist, and other markets for cheap used amenities.
Thanks to manufacturing moving out to China, even new merchandise is often dirt cheap.
These amenities are a one-time expense (for each item)* that the poor may have saved for. When I was a kid, my dad lost his job and when the TV broke, we went over a year without one until my parents had saved up for one. But once we had one - voila! we'd be on the statistics of poor with a TV!
Not buying a $25 used VCR won't pull the poor out of poverty.
Selling a DVD player, computer, and Xbox won't make up for the lack of a good-paying job nor will it pull the poor out of poverty.
* I read most of the report but didn't see how many poor have subscription-based services like mobile phone plans and cable TV.
When I was a college student, I would have been classified as poor yet I never took any public assistance. And yet I had a TV (picked up from the neighbor's trash), phone, access to my roommate's computer, VCR, stereo, A/C, etc. I would have been a data point in this study that made the kneejerkers yell about subsidizing my life - and they would have been wrong.[/quote]
When I was 16, I got a job at my local supermarket. What I am about to say is VERY common:
Groceries, well "groceries" because I don't think banquet dinners are "food"..lol.. were purchased with their access card.
They would then BUY lobster (never really steak) with the cash available on the EBT card.
Yes, people get access to cash on their ACCESS card (this is what it was called back in like 2000 at least!)
So... what say you now?
WELFARE recipients get "welfare" (CASH) and FOOD STAMPS. Both are distributed through the "ACCESS" CARD. (This CARD has a different name in each state.)
FOOD STAMP recipients get FOOD STAMPS on their CARD. If they do not also have WELFARE, they don't get any CASH.
lol at you guys thinking someone can buy a jacuzzi while they are poor.
Not only that, a lot of people believe that 43 percent (give or take a few percent depending on when you ask) of American homeowners buy their home while they are poor.
Well it's true. While a very small number it showed up on the survey of amenities that the moderate poor have.
I'd almost say that the moderate poor receiving some government assistance might be living better than the working class poor that get no government assistance.
It's people like you who think millions of poor Americans are buying homes.
Poor people do not live in either a vacuum or a bubble. They have friends, family, relatives.
And every conservative should know - because many like to remind us of this - that Americans move in and out of "poverty" all the time.
I think "poor" jacuzzi owners would have interesting stories to tell. They may have gone from the top income quintile to the bottom quintile. They may have inherited their home. Heck, maybe they were poor all along, inherited $10,000 and blew the cash on silly things like a jacuzzi.
I posted the Dept of Energy survey several times throughout this thread complete with percentage owned by poor people
There's even a category for jacuzzi's owned by "poor" people.
This is not my opinion..this is 2005 Dept of Energy survey of moderate poor households.
That was a report done in 2005. That was 6 years ago. You do not think that maybe that could have changed in 5 years and that is why they do reports either every year or every couple of years? Wow some people have no thinking comprehension skills.
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