An interesting read about the poor in the US

[Steve B]

[Robert Green]

says: "Without specifying exact information sources, The Heritage Foundation said a senior researcher reviewed government reports and found these results"

If they can't (or won't) specify their sources, they're not much in the way of real researchers. About what I would expect from a partisan think tank. Clearly they don't want anyone *else* looking at their alleged data and drawing different conclusions.

Let's play a game: *My* research shows that the Heritage Foundations is dedicated to fomenting class warfare and its conclusions are reached before the alleged research is done. Of course, like them, I can't *show* you the actual details of my research. Just take my word for it because I once worked for a think tank, too. Or better yet, my unnamed sources report that this is a deliberate propaganda campaign designed to advance conservative interests. See how easy it is to play BS researcher/reporter? Sheesh. Regrettably, some people will believe anything that appears in print without asking a single tough question.

FWIW, the Heritage Foundation is hardly an unbiased source for "news" of this nature:

If a researcher refuses to reveal source data or methodology and doesn't even bother to submit their work for peer review then you can pretty much assume the data's been cooked with an agenda in mind. The Heritage Foundation has been cooking data to order for their wealthy patrons since they day they crawled out of the ground:

[HeyBub]

Had you read the report itself with a bit of diligence you would have found references to the following source material:

US Dept of Commerce, "American Housing Survey for the United States" US Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, "Housing Characteristics" United Nations Center for Human Settlements "The Housing Indicators Program" US Dept of Energy, "Housing Statistics in the European Union" USDA Economic Research Service, "Household Food Security in the US" US Bureau of the Census, "Current Population Survey" USDA "Food and Nutrient Intakes by Individuals in the United States" Bulletin of the World Health Organization, "Worldwide Magnitude of Protien-Energy Malnutrition" US Bureau of the Census, "Survey of Income and Program Participation"

But, I understand that when attacking the message is inconvenient, attacking the messenger is all that's left.

[Steve B]

Everyone, even the perfect liberals, have their own agenda.

Steve

[Steve B]

>

Kudos, sir. I took it as truth when I noticed that so many credible agencies took part. Also, it was noted, but not stated in this article that a percentage near 50% owned their own homes.

Steve

[trader4]

Not only is he attacking the messenger, but I can't help but laugh at the silly comments he posted"

"The idea that someone who probably never is, was or will be poor is a leading national authority always makes me giggle."

So apparently unless you're a researcher who happens to be poor, your findings are meaningless. Makes sense. We should immediately dismiss research on cancer too, unless the researcher has cancer.

"looking at what kind of appliances people have is not the best way to figure out who is poor."

Maybe not the best way, nor did anyone say that it was. But it is one way to look at what people who are living in poverty have so it can be compared to what people living in say India in poverty have.

"Yes, having an Xbox is the same as having a trust fund or an offshore tax shelter."

Another strawman.

"The well to do, take from these propaganda pieces the belief that poverty is something that people bring upon themselves and the rich are rich by virtue of their sound judgement."

In most cases poverty is something that people bring on by themselves. Examples being dropping out of school in the 10th grade, getting pregnant at 16, etc. There are definitely a significant number who wind up there through no fault of their own, but IMO, it's the minority. And the group is not static. You can lift yourself out of poverty in most cases if you choose to do so.

"To be worthy of charity you must be . . . in such plight as to move a sociopath to pity, which would not apply to someone who has electricity and a TV, or who has eaten in the last week."

"Air conditioner, tv, xbox are all a one time expense, under $100 or $200. Rent, mortgage, food are relentless and recurring and often rising in cost when wages have dropped, disappeared, or gone stagnant."

They may be a one time expense, but they do define your standard of living.

"How dare the poor take advantage of decades old innovations that can be bought at second-hand retailers for nearly nothing! It is shameful that they would dare to try taking advantage of technologies the rest of us take for granted and couldn't imagine living without. Obviously the only "true" poor are living in tents and cooking road-kill over an open fire."

No one said any such thing.

"I honestly think Congress ought to be required to subsist on median income for their district. It'd give them an incentive to improve the plight of people on the bottom. I know it will never happen but still I wish some of them could be required to run the gauntlet that someone who grows up poor does for at least a year. Learn how it feels to scrounge for change in your car to pay a co pay for a kid with an ear infection and dread having to take a whole day off without pay to care for them."

No one forced them to have kids that they could not support. The result is we all pay for their irresponsibility.

"Has the Heritage Foundation found a some way to prepare an X-Box for dinner? No. Prices for computers and video games are at record lows because of the economic crash. You cannot eat computers/video games."

No, but if they had not spent the $200 on an X-Box, they could have used it for food. Also, an X-Box isn't a one time expense either. You do typically continue to buy games for it and they aren't cheap either. Think a person in poverty in India has one?

"The difference between the poor and the middle class has everything to do with security-freedom from destitution. Not whether or not you can buy a $50 Xbox, $100 TV, and $20 microwave. Cheap crap has little or no bearing on what constitutes income security."

I'd say the difference between the poor and the middle class, in most cases is that the middle class graduated at least high school, worked hard and did not have 6 kids they couldn't support.

"We all have an obligation to the society because we all benefit from it."

What benefit did I get from the trillions that have been spent on the war on poverty? And why 4 decades later is the poverty rate exactly the same despite all the programs we have now that we did not have in the 60's that were supposed to greatly reduce poverty?

"People are seeing right through the whole poor people have too much thing. Particularly when they know that trillions went to people who then paid themselves million dollar bonuses and are now whining about being taxed on it."

I don't see anyone claiming the poor have too much. All the research did was show what in fact they do have. As for trillions that went to million dollar bonuses, you must be talking about Obama's solar energy handouts. So far, we know trillions in govt loans went to companies that made large donations to Obama and the Dems. I can't wait to see what the FBI figures out with Solyndra, which got $500mil and about a year later they are bankrupt. Should be an interesting campaign topic.

"getting tax rates back to where they were in say the 1970's or even under Reagan isn't "taxing the rich to death." There were plenty of rich folks in those decades as well. And they didn't die due to high tax rates. Whereas

45,000 Americans ACTUALLY DIE from a lack of health care every year"

Good to see you want income tax rates reduced to 28%, which is what the top rate was under Reagan.

"if we tax the rich then they'll leave for other countries. Well, I wish we would so they'd leave already. They've made an utter mess here and it's impossible to clean up while they're still here making a mess"

Typical. Who do you think creates jobs?

"West Virginia is one of the poorest states in the Union. And yet, judging by the amount of natural resource wealth in that state in the form of coal, it should be one of the richest. How did this end result happen?"

Maybe because the poor folks don't own the mines? But certainly those mines have given a lot of decent paying jobs that support a lifestyle well above the poverty line.

[JimT]

[gfretwell]

>

The US has a totally different definition of "poor" than the rest of the world.

[Vic Smith]

What's the point of this article? Poor people have a couple thousand dollars of possessions, counting cars. Maybe less, depending on whether they scrounge well. They can come up with 50 bucks a month to get cable TV. So what? I'd guess they have to pay their electric and gas bills too. Do they have insurance for their cars? House insurance if they have one? Medical insurance, or do they go to the E-room? How many are "working poor?"

I always figure it's their toys - especially cable TV - that keeps poor people in the U.S. from *really* realizing they are poor. Keeps them just busy enough not to dwell on the fact they are poor. The poor of other cultures handle it their own way, not needing "material" goods to entertain them. Irish, Poles and Russians socialize and drink a lot. Much more alcoholism I think. Not sure though. My wife is originally from Poland and I hear about alcoholics all the time.

But these are all mechanisms to keep the poor from rioting or turning to crime because of their condition. If it ever got to where the poor couldn't afford cable TV, the government and Wall Street would provide them free cable. Maintain the status quo.

I don't even know any poor people. Steve just mentioned somebody who is poor and was looking for a place to live. Wonder is she has an Xbox.

--Vic

[Vic Smith]

Think about it. The poor have these toys. Xbox, cable TV, microwaves, cars, etc. So that means they're not poor. There are no poor people! Pretty easy to see the motive here. Cut government spending on poor people however possible. Because they aren't poor! I don't like spending on "welfare" myself. But the answer to that is jobs. The problem with that is to get good jobs back here requires taking a whip to the "free trade" principles these guys got rich from. Not that Obama is any better, being surrounded by Wall Streeters. So outfits like the Heritage Foundation are fighting a losing battle anyway. America will always take care of the poor to prevent rioting and subsequent "socialism," and just become more of a welfare state until jobs come back. Look at the food stamp program. Walmart is the biggest employer in the U.S. Check out how many Walmart employees are on food stamps. And Medicaid. You think Walmart wants food stamps to go away? The big "capitalist" is a living example of "socialism." hehe.

--Vic

[Vic Smith]

You don't have to go there. Watch it on cable TV! Those people in Bolivia might be happy. Doubt that's true in Somalia. Poorest place I ever went to was Bizerte, Tunisia, back in '64. Still donkeys all over, no cars. After that, the "farm" in the Ozarks near Doniphan, Missouri where my ma grew up. Poor is all relative anyway. I think I could easily survive being poor. Until I died. Worst thing about being poor is you have to be around poor people.

--Vic

[Dean Hoffman]

This is from Forbes:

The basic thrust of the article is we (U.S.) don't measure poverty uniformly over time.

[trader4]

Another myth easily busted. The poverty rate today is just slightly higher than it was before. It's varied from about 12% to 15% over the last 40 years through boom or bust. It's also just about where it was before Johnson declared war on poverty and the govt spent trillions on welfare over the next 40 years. So, if the economy were at full employment, instead of 15% you'd have 13%. Better? Yes. But the answer to poverty? No way.

You need to look at the other side of the equation. Today that family living in poverty can buy an air conditioner for $100. If it and all the other cheap things that can be bought from abroad cost twice that because we erect trade barriers, are they going to be better off or worse off?

Also, I think everyone pretty much agrees that one thing that made the Great Depression worse was passing trade barriers trying to do exactly what you propose.

Poverty went from 13% to 15% from this recession. Clearly, linking the vast majority of poverty to the availability of jobs is nonsense.

I'd be interested in seeing data on how many Walmart employees are on food stamps and Medicaid. You have it? It really doesn't matter, as there will always be people on govt programs working part-time in minimum wage jobs for one reason or another.

BTW, since you're so pissed off about jobs, what about what Obama is doing to Boeing? Unlike the simple research article that has your shorts in a knot, which really affects nothing, the Obama administration is doing everything it can to block Boeing from opening it's plant in SC to build parts for the new 787. They are doing it because a union in WA state claims Boeing built the $1 bil plant there to retaliate for a strike years ago. Nice job, no? Screw around not only with the jobs in SC, but also those of the entire 787 program throughout this country and the world. Then Obama complains when companies like Boeing move jobs overseas.

[HeyBub]

>>

Yep, and they will always be with us because the definition is the "lowest quintile".

[Robert Green]

The accumulation by purchase, charity, dumpster diving, etc. of a class of equipment whose value depends so much on its unspecified manufacture date isn't a poverty indicator. We don't know that, we don't know the veracity of the self-reported data and we don't know what data they analyzed and by what methodologies. This is pure, tasty propaganda with a side of baloney. National expert? Uh-huh.

It bothers me too much not to have the film date correct.

says:

One year off. Maybe it was the book that came out in 1939 or it was made in

1939. I got it for 99 cents at the local CD/DVD exchange.

-- Bobby G.

[DD_BobK]

checkout

I think there might be some ways to avoid poverty based on the data in this article.

cheers Bob

[Robert Green]

I pay $14 a month for basic cable. Fortunately my local government mandated as part of the franchise agreement to keep a low-end pricing tier available. So without specifying what they're paying, it could be $14, it could be $150. We just don't know even though it has bearing on the issue. Digging into the report, I cannot find any information about the values of these "outrageous for the poor to possess" possessions.

Only because insurers have turned the state governments into their collection agencies.

I worked with secretaries that worked very hard for 1/5 of the salary I made and 1/10 the salary the VP's got. I know the working poor and have personally helped them when I can. When my secretary went to nightschool, I finagled TPTB to allow her study group to meet in our building and chaperoned them to help her in her quest to better herself.

She and others on staff like her were so poor and so constantly in need of money that they couldn't afford to match the pension fund contributions the company would make because they needed every penny in the here and now. They left free (future) money on the table because the needs of the present were so pressing.

The bosses moved the company to a very ritzy neighborhood without good public transportation access making the commute doubly hard for the poorer employees.

Thanks the Romans for this societal control measure. Back then it was bread and circuses. Now it's food stamps and cable TV. Same principle, though.

Say cscecz for me. One of my first GF's was a Pole from Bayonne NJ with a huge friendly family that all exhibited a constant thankfulness that they had made it to America and a better life. The Poles have taken quite a beating in the last 100 years. Cscecz is about all I remember. I think it means hello but it could mean how are you.

An unfortunate part of this is that drug sales peak dramatically when welfare and SSA checks arrive. More bread and circuses, really, because a heroin user ain't gonna riot when he's high. I wonder: when the people who want to end all this get what they want, are they really going to be happy with what they get?

Bread and circuses came about after a number of food riots from famines which spilled over into the wealthy neighborhoods. It's lasted because it works.

Her private parts are NOT relevant! (-:

-- Bobby G.

[Robert Green]

To understand that requires understanding both history AND cause and effect. What are the chances with certain individuals? (-:

-- Bobby G.

[Kurt Ullman]

One of the shots at Medicare "reform" during the Bush years included Congress specifically funding a troop of FBI agents to deal with nothing but MCare fraud. The results have been spotty at best.

And also causing us problems. If you look at manufacturing output, even measured in constant dollars, it has actually gone up since the

80s. What has happened is mfg productivity gains since then have cut the number of JOBS. We haven't lost nearly as many mfg jobs to the Chinese as we have to the Robots.

And name one country where the government has actually been able to act as a counterbalance to the boom and bust cycle? I haven't seen it.

Not really. See above.

My guess is that they will do what the Dems are doing now and blame the other party. Pretty much a given. Don't know why you even bothered to ask the question (g).

[Robert Green]

I am confused. If the Federal government, as so many conservatives claim, is inept, untrustworthy and coerced by Marxists, why trust a single word of any report they put out? Do they only become credible when they seem to support a conclusion you agree with?

Why haven't the Feds fumbled the data upon which this research is allegedly based the way they supposedly make a mess of everything else?

Are you even sure that what Heritage *says* these reports reveal is what they really what's in the reports? Lots of links in the chain, each one needs to be investigated thoroughly. The Heritage folks seem to think that a quarter of a million Americans being homeless is no big thing. I don't.

As I trace through the report's footnotes, I find a disturbing number of references to previous works by the authors of the current report. So far, lots of pointers to reports, but not much in the way of how that information was extracted, "massaged" or how reliable it is. Surveying the poor is tricky business. They are often afraid that the wrong answers to questions will hurt them in some way - and quite often, they are correct. Reaching the homeless and those poor enough not have a telephone is always very tricky to account for properly. Without their methodology, their conclusions are doubtful.

-- Bobby G.