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Poverty today in America

Mircea said:
They remain poor by their own choices.

I'll prove it.....

TIG, Stick, and MIG are the most common welding process that involve either joining base metals with high heat (TIG) or using filler metal (MIG and stick). Since this is a Basic course, expect to pay around $150.Sep 24, 2021

How Much Does Welding School Cost? (Updated In 2021)​

https://waterwelders.com › how-much-does-welding-scho


The Poor® could spend $150 for a MIG/TIG welding course and start earning $18/hour to $65/hour depending on where in the US they live, and their wages will increase as they gain experience.

So, why don't they?

Because they choose not to do that.

Should all of The Poor® become welders?

No, but that's no the point.

The point is there are literally 1,000s of job-training opportunities available to them that range from Totally Friggin' 100% Free to low-cost like $150-$300.

If The Poor® refuse to help themselves, then why should I help them?

More to the point, I'm already helping them because those 1,000s of job-training opportunities are courtesy of my tax-dollars.

Instead of wasting your time on forums bleating like a sheep, why don't you go bleat at The Poor® and goad, cajole, shame or whatever you need to do to motivate them to improve their lives?
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Do you not realize how far out of reach $150.00 in disposable income is to some people? And even if they manage to somehow get it, how do they get to the class? What do they eat while they train? Who watches the kids? Buys the gas? Pays the rent?

Your post proves nothing except just how far out of touch you are.
 
LetsGoBrandon said:
But then segregation ended within a couple decades of the Civil Rights Act. Entrenched poverty is due to dependence on government entitlements with no sunshine date. At least when those who do work take advantage of unemployment benefits, they tend to go back to work and support their families when the benefits run out. However we can agree to disagree.
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That is pure myth with no basis in economics. Entrenched poverty is due to unequal protection of the laws that could otherwise solve that dilemma on an at-will basis in our at-will employment States. The dilemma really is this simple: The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.
 
Gateman_Wen said:
Do you not realize how far out of reach $150.00 in disposable income is to some people?
Click to expand...

They've got $1,200 in butt-ugly tattoos but don't have $150 to improve their lives?

I can go into any household in the US and come up with $150 in less than 90 days.

Before you scream, "SSI!" if someone is receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) it means they are disabled and didn't qualify for SSDI because they didn't have enough qualifying quarters of work, or because they are retired and their Social Security Retirement benefit is less than $841/month.

Gateman_Wen said:
And even if they manage to somehow get it, how do they get to the class?
Click to expand...

They can walk, ride a bike, take the bus, drive or get someone with a car to take them.

If they wanted dope or beer or to go to the casino to gamble, they'd call a friend to drive them. They can call the same friend to drive them to class.

Or, they can go to St Vincent de Paul, or the Salvation Army, or Goodwill or any number of private organizations, and get a bus pass for totally free.

If they're a veteran, their VA social worker will give them bus tokens or a bus pass or a travel voucher for totally free.

For all others, there are city/county offices that will provide bus tokens or bus passes.

You completely ignored the fact that those people have transporation to anyplace they need to go, like the welfare office, or grocery shopping or buying the latest hippity-hop fashions.

Gateman_Wen said:
What do they eat while they train? Who watches the kids? Buys the gas? Pays the rent?

Your post proves nothing except just how far out of touch you are.
Click to expand...

You're the one out of touch.

They eat what they normally eat, except for less junk food. Many of these courses are offered at high school vocational schools or local community vocational schools or technical schools.

Guess what? They got day-care. And it's free.

Their gas and rent is paid for by their minimum wage job, the same job that already pays their rent and buys gas to drive around town looking for dope or running down to the liquor store to get beer.

Note they can always ride the bus.

You completely ignore the fact that motivated people always find a way.

On a more positive note, you are the Queen of Excuses.
 
Mircea said:
They've got $1,200 in butt-ugly tattoos but don't have $150 to improve their lives?

I can go into any household in the US and come up with $150 in less than 90 days.

Before you scream, "SSI!" if someone is receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) it means they are disabled and didn't qualify for SSDI because they didn't have enough qualifying quarters of work, or because they are retired and their Social Security Retirement benefit is less than $841/month.



They can walk, ride a bike, take the bus, drive or get someone with a car to take them.

If they wanted dope or beer or to go to the casino to gamble, they'd call a friend to drive them. They can call the same friend to drive them to class.

Or, they can go to St Vincent de Paul, or the Salvation Army, or Goodwill or any number of private organizations, and get a bus pass for totally free.

If they're a veteran, their VA social worker will give them bus tokens or a bus pass or a travel voucher for totally free.

For all others, there are city/county offices that will provide bus tokens or bus passes.

You completely ignored the fact that those people have transporation to anyplace they need to go, like the welfare office, or grocery shopping or buying the latest hippity-hop fashions.



You're the one out of touch.

They eat what they normally eat, except for less junk food. Many of these courses are offered at high school vocational schools or local community vocational schools or technical schools.

Guess what? They got day-care. And it's free.

Their gas and rent is paid for by their minimum wage job, the same job that already pays their rent and buys gas to drive around town looking for dope or running down to the liquor store to get beer.

Note they can always ride the bus.

You completely ignore the fact that motivated people always find a way.

On a more positive note, you are the Queen of Excuses.
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Seriously, dude. Reality called. It said you should get in touch one of these days.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
The Heritage Foundation made a big splash in the mid 20-teens with a "report" that stated that 99.6% of ALL households in America owned a refrigerator, as if to somehow imply that there is no real poverty in America. Fox News Channel's team made quick work of that "report" and went on to scold America's giving community by admonishing them that their targets enjoyed not only a refrigerator, but cars and video consoles.

Hmmm, never mind that the video console and its attached flat panel TV may have likely been purchased for twenty or thirty bucks at a neighborhood yard sale and hail from a decade or two earlier, never mind that said "car" is running on one or two less than the standard number of cylinders and is in bad need of an inspection and repairs, never mind that the fridge probably has nothing more impressive than last night's leftover mac & cheese, some stale hot dogs and a jug of Kool-Aid and little else.


Today's Republicans cannot distinguish between "the poor" and "the dying", the latter of which
is represented to them in church by placards showing poor African babies with bellies distended from
kwashiorkor and emaciated from lack of protein.
As long as those starving babies remain in Africa or the Middle East, they'll give cheerfully.
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1642730068431.png​
 
Lafayette said:
POVERTY IN AMERICA TODAY

I sense a lack of discussion on the matter of today's poverty in America. And yet, a very large portion of American families are literally "incarcerated" in that economic-sector.

The best and most qualified sites available for information are typically governmental and thus their access is bonafide-data. Thusly their information shows how pathetically unfair the taxation-system in the US is allowing income to gather and reproduce itself almost uniquely at the top. Which is creating the extremely large progression of upper-income ownership.

Whilst on the other end of the spectrum, people have to seek "handouts" to feed themselves on a daily basis. Or they spend nearly all their income that they attain from existing social support-systems to feed themselves and their families. (And I am sure also the numbers indicating criminality are impacted by this particular population!)

Today is very different from the 19th century when many families were fed by "religious support" groups. Which still do some such gracious-work but not as much as two-centuries ago. My point being this: We as a nation have a moral-requirement to assure that people can live a decent existence at a suitable level of income.

Because the evidence is showing that far too many of our fellow citizens still do not have the means to exist in the US at reasonable level given the present inadequacy nationally of "necessity support-systems". Studies show that the minimal income level in the US looks somewhat like this from here: Poverty Threshold

Excerpt:


So, let's presume that the threshold that interests us is for a family of four ($26,200). How many families make this amount of money in all of the US?

Answer excerpted from here: Income and Poverty in the United States: 2020


It is not easy to find the exact Incomes below which "poverty" is a proven level of existence. And, I find it tragic that we cannot know that Very Important Number-level for a good many American families in order to address specifically their needs*.

There is a wealth of information from this linked-site above that I cannot insert here and gives a damn-fine view of Poverty Today in American Families. For those interested in that question, this site (linked above) is key-reading ... !

*Poverty is an existence that has its ins-and-outs. Some live their lives there but many depend upon their work to free them from that type of "imprisonment". And given the nature of work that has exited the US for points-south (of the American border) poverty must be coming an acute problem for the nation.
Click to expand...
Some good advice is to not have any kids when oneself is currently poor.
 
Mircea said:
Great. Another propaganda thread. You've never seen poverty. If you want, I'll take you on the World Poverty Tour™. We'll visit a number of countries, but you'll have to sign a release, because I don't want to be held responsible for your vomiting and having nightmares the rest of your life.

There's nothing to discuss.

Poverty is an attitude and it is self-inflicted. Those who do not wish to be "impoverished" will take the necessary steps to remove themselves from poverty and those who are apathetic and don't give a rat's ass will continued to be adored by the likes of you.


Your continued Göbbelizations are unbecoming. In the truest traditions of Herr Josef Göbbels, you foist your Fallacy of Equivocation on everyone, falsely equivocating income with wealth.

No, they don't have to seek handouts. They need to learn how to live within their means.

In Economics -- something you don't understand -- we call that "substitution."

That's because you are grotesquely incompetent on the subject.

The so-called "federal poverty level" is irrelevant, meaningless and not of any value.

That's because it is the weighted average of the poverty levels of the 48 lower States (both Hawai'i and Alaska are omitted as statistical outliers due to the extraordinary Cost-of-Living in those States.)

Precisely because it is the weighted average, it is of no value.

To prove it is of no value, the Department of Housing & Urban Development --- which along with the Department of Transportation is largely responsible for high housing costs in the fraction of the 120,000+ housing markets that have high housing costs -- does not use the federal poverty level or even take it into consideration.

As a result, in some areas of the US, a single person earning $14,001/year is denied tax-payer housing subdies, because they earn too much money.

At the same time, in other areas of the US, a single person earning $55,692/annually gets the benefit of tax-payer housing subsidies, because they don't earn enough money.

But, the real question here is not how many people are in poverty, the real question is what emotion/mental illness would compel someone to butt in and insert themselves into the business of other people who aren't even remotely interested in their own financial circumstances?
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What's hypocritical about those who cry about poverty in America and how nearly impossible it is for many to escape poverty, are the same people who want millions of the world's impoverished citizens to comes to America and talk about they will all contribute through hard work.
 
Lafayette said:
POVERTY IN AMERICA TODAY

I sense a lack of discussion on the matter of today's poverty in America. And yet, a very large portion of American families are literally "incarcerated" in that economic-sector.

The best and most qualified sites available for information are typically governmental and thus their access is bonafide-data. Thusly their information shows how pathetically unfair the taxation-system in the US is allowing income to gather and reproduce itself almost uniquely at the top. Which is creating the extremely large progression of upper-income ownership.

Whilst on the other end of the spectrum, people have to seek "handouts" to feed themselves on a daily basis. Or they spend nearly all their income that they attain from existing social support-systems to feed themselves and their families. (And I am sure also the numbers indicating criminality are impacted by this particular population!)

Today is very different from the 19th century when many families were fed by "religious support" groups. Which still do some such gracious-work but not as much as two-centuries ago. My point being this: We as a nation have a moral-requirement to assure that people can live a decent existence at a suitable level of income.

Because the evidence is showing that far too many of our fellow citizens still do not have the means to exist in the US at reasonable level given the present inadequacy nationally of "necessity support-systems". Studies show that the minimal income level in the US looks somewhat like this from here: Poverty Threshold

Excerpt:


So, let's presume that the threshold that interests us is for a family of four ($26,200). How many families make this amount of money in all of the US?

Answer excerpted from here: Income and Poverty in the United States: 2020


It is not easy to find the exact Incomes below which "poverty" is a proven level of existence. And, I find it tragic that we cannot know that Very Important Number-level for a good many American families in order to address specifically their needs*.

There is a wealth of information from this linked-site above that I cannot insert here and gives a damn-fine view of Poverty Today in American Families. For those interested in that question, this site (linked above) is key-reading ... !

*Poverty is an existence that has its ins-and-outs. Some live their lives there but many depend upon their work to free them from that type of "imprisonment". And given the nature of work that has exited the US for points-south (of the American border) poverty must be coming an acute problem for the nation.
Click to expand...
1642898696574.png​
 
Gateman_Wen said:
Seriously, dude. Reality called. It said you should get in touch one of these days.
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I would be more impressed if you could come up with 1,001 lame excuses for The Poor®.

If you go on Useless Tube, you can actually watch videos of pathetic people with $1,200 of butt-ugly whining incessantly that they don't have $400 saved up for an emergency.
 
cpwill said:
🤷‍♂️ If you would like something more explicit, The OECD Says the United States Has the Most Progressive Tax System

It's not that we tax our wealthy so much more; it's that we tax our middle and lower income strata so much less.
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"when it comes to household taxes (income taxes and employee social security contributions) the U.S. "has the most progressive tax system and collects the largest share of taxes from the richest 10% of the population.""

I've looked myself. Making it difficult is that most US sources only cover Federal taxes, while OECD deals with all of government.
 
danielpalos said:
We can solve simple poverty in the US by merely bearing true witness to our own laws.

What is the opinion of solving simple poverty and raising the minimum wage to raise more tax revenue via general forms of taxation instead of direct forms of taxation?
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Universal basic income is actually an interesting proposal. But it's an idea whose time has not yet come.
 
Lutherf said:
What system has solved poverty?
Click to expand...

All the most successful developed economies in the world today in this regard have hybrid mixed economies- with capitalism for most of their economy but public support for bare bottom safety nets for the protection of the most basic human rights and dignity of their citizens: including the right to food, clean water, shelter, a basic education, and access to healthcare.
 
If $26k is the level for a family of four, here's some context. The value of the support systems already in place our outlined in a recent CATO study.

Nationwide, our study found that the wage‐equivalent value of benefits for a mother and two children ranged from a high of $60,590 in Hawaii to a low of $11,150 in Idaho. In 33 states and the District of Columbia, welfare pays more than an $8‑an‐hour job. In 12 states and DC, the welfare package is more generous than a $15‐an‐hour job.
Click to expand...

Source here.
 
Lutherf said:
There is a simple solution. Simply abandon capitalism, prohibit any and all cash transactions, eliminate private sector employment and just have the central government provide for everyone’s necessities. Poof! No more poverty.

If everyone is destitute then all are equally wealthy!
Click to expand...

The debate between pure free market capitalism and pure socialism may be a little like the debate between how much time to spend at work vs with the family. Most of us want to work hard and make lots of money and/or advance professionally. But we also want to spend time with family or with hobbies and outside interests. They are both good things. But these two ideals and desires clash, irreconcilably, leaving us having to juggle and navigate uneasily between them.

But that doesn't mean our only two choices are either workaholism or being a lazy bum. Most rational people try to figure out some uneasy and always dynamic balance between such opposing, but equally legitimate considerations. In fact, the people who become the most unhealthy and neurotic are the ones who think the one right answer should be either one or the other extreme on that spectrum.

Broadly speaking, it seems to me the countries which do the best are the ones which provide at least some basic safety net for the protection of the basic human rights of their citizens if they hit hard times: the right to food, clean water, shelter, a basic education, and access to healthcare, and leave everything else up to the free market. That way, there is some basic security in the populace that the price of hitting hard times (something that is a given in any capitalist system) is not death for yourself or your family, or having to face desperate situations no human being should ever have to face- because that's when really bad things start to happen in a society and it becomes socially and economically unstable and unsustainable.
 
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...is due to a lack of automatic stabilization resulting from right-wing bigotry and fascism and expressed as legal and moral bigotry against the Poor under our form of Capitalism.
 
ataraxia said:
The debate between pure free market capitalism and pure socialism may be a little like the debate between how much time to spend at work vs with the family. Most of us want to work hard and make lots of money and/or advance professionally. But we also want to spend time with family or with hobbies and outside interests. They are both good things. But these two ideals and desires clash, irreconcilably, leaving us having to juggle and navigate uneasily between them.

But that doesn't mean our only two choices are either workaholism or being a lazy bum. Most rational people try to figure out some uneasy and always dynamic balance between such opposing, but equally legitimate considerations. In fact, the people who become the most unhealthy and neurotic are the ones who think the one right answer should be either one or the other extreme on that spectrum.

Broadly speaking, it seems to me the countries which do the best are the ones which provide at least some basic safety net for the protection of the basic human rights of their citizens if they hit hard times: the right to food, clean water, shelter, a basic education, and access to healthcare, and leave everything else up to the free market. That way, there is some basic security in the populace that the price of hitting hard times (something that is a given in any capitalist system) is not death for yourself or your family, or having to face desperate situations no human being should ever have to face- because that's when really bad things start to happen in a society and it becomes socially and economically unstable and unsustainable.
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I don't think anyone expects a pure economic system and I don't think that's the point. The issue tends to be how much we should subsidize poor social outcomes and under what circumstances those subsidies should be provided.

One of the big issues is whether these subsidies should be treated as an entitlement or as temporary assistance. Entitlements tend to have the effect, psychologically, of making the beneficiary reliant on that subsidy. The incentive to move past the circumstances that required that assistance decreases and the perceived "need" for the entitlement increases. The question SHOULD be whether we are going to focus on creating a more independent, interdependent and productive society or whether we are merely going to throw money at the problem, build a bureaucracy around perpetuating the problem and expanding the perception of "need" to an ever expanding demographic.
 
Lutherf said:
I don't think anyone expects a pure economic system and I don't think that's the point. The issue tends to be how much we should subsidize poor social outcomes and under what circumstances those subsidies should be provided.

One of the big issues is whether these subsidies should be treated as an entitlement or as temporary assistance. Entitlements tend to have the effect, psychologically, of making the beneficiary reliant on that subsidy. The incentive to move past the circumstances that required that assistance decreases and the perceived "need" for the entitlement increases. The question SHOULD be whether we are going to focus on creating a more independent, interdependent and productive society or whether we are merely going to throw money at the problem, build a bureaucracy around perpetuating the problem and expanding the perception of "need" to an ever expanding demographic.
Click to expand...

The myth of welfare dependence in this country is grossly exaggerated and propogated only for ulterior political motives. Such welfare systems and basic safety nets exist in every single other developed economy on the planet, and work quite well without such problems of dependence. It's not really a significant problem here either. It's just used for political campaign purposes.

Dispelling the Myth of Welfare Dependency | Harvard Evidence for Policy Design

Social safety nets worldwide routinely come under attack by critics wielding an argument that is as misleading as it is familiar.
epod.cid.harvard.edu epod.cid.harvard.edu

This is a vicious myth propogated by various interest groups, including those like the wealthy who just don't want to pay taxes to live in a society with some basic safety nets and sense of public safety, because they think they are somehow immune from ever hitting hard times (or that the politicians will look out for them as special cases if they ever do- which has been a correct calculation), and racists because they think such a jungle-like society will hurt vulnerable minorities more than themselves, so that makes it worth it.

It started with Reagan and his myth of the "Cadillac-driving welfare queen", started so successfully during his presidential campaign- and has now taken on a life of its own. But the agenda behind starting and propogating this myth was explained by Reagan's chief campaign advisor, Lee Atwater, in this 1981 interview:
______________________
Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry Dent and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [Reagan] doesn't have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he's campaigned on since 1964 [...] and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, states' rights, you know, the whole cluster...

Questioner: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?

Atwater: Y'all don't quote me on this. You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."
en.wikipedia.org

Southern strategy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
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ataraxia said:
The myth of welfare dependence in this country is grossly exaggerated and propogated only for ulterior political motives. Such welfare systems and basic safety nets exist in every single other developed economy on the planet, and work quite well without such problems of dependence. It's not really a significant problem here either. It's just used for political campaign purposes.

Dispelling the Myth of Welfare Dependency | Harvard Evidence for Policy Design

Social safety nets worldwide routinely come under attack by critics wielding an argument that is as misleading as it is familiar.
epod.cid.harvard.edu epod.cid.harvard.edu

This is a vicious myth propogated by various interest groups, including those like the wealthy who just don't want to pay taxes to live in a society with some basic safety nets and sense of public safety, because they think they are somehow immune from ever hitting hard times (or that the politicians will look out for them as special cases if they ever do- which has been a correct calculation), and racists because they think such a jungle-like society will hurt vulnerable minorities more than themselves, so that makes it worth it.

It started with Reagan and his myth of the "Cadillac-driving welfare queen", started so successfully during his presidential campaign- and has now taken on a life of its own. But the agenda behind starting and propogating this myth was explained by Reagan's chief campaign advisor, Lee Atwater, in this 1981 interview:
______________________
Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry Dent and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [Reagan] doesn't have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he's campaigned on since 1964 [...] and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster...

Questioner: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?

Atwater: Y'all don't quote me on this. You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."
en.wikipedia.org

Southern strategy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
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OK. So it's all about racism. I should have known better than to attempt a reasonable response.
 
Lutherf said:
OK. So it's all about racism. I should have known better than to attempt a reasonable response.
Click to expand...

Well, not entirely. It's also about coddling the super-rich and big campaign donors at the expense of the entire rest of the nation too. A lot of whites get hurt in all this as well, but apparently that's acceptable collateral damage. If you can exploit all their ignorance and bigotry to keep advancing your own personal interests and agenda on their backs, does it matter that you can get them to so eagerly keep supporting you at their own expense? It's a bonus.



Are you suggesting that the GOP's chief political strategists don't know what they're talking about?
 
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Lutherf said:
What system has solved poverty?
Click to expand...

Social Democratic political system. In Europe, it is much less so than in the US.

How's that? To recover from WW2 (and rebuild housing in the larger cities that were most destroyed) Real Estate was always a fine business postwar in the EU. Much less so today, because the cities are very largely rebuilt and over-populated.

We have poor in Europe, but the national family-subsidies are far more important than in the US. Moreover divorce rates are far lower.

See below:
1643048667998.png

I put the above divorce-rate to be around 3.6 for the US and around 2.7 for Europe ...
 
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