The US sliding to 3rd World Country Status

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

"About 97.3 million Americans fall into a low-income category, commonly defined as those earning between 100 and 199 percent of the poverty level, based on a new supplemental measure by the Census Bureau that is designed to provide a fuller picture of poverty. Together with the 49.1 million who fall below the poverty line and are counted as poor, they number 146.4 million, or 48 percent of the U.S. population. That's up by 4 million from 2009, the earliest numbers for the newly developed poverty measure.
"

With roughly half the country being poor people, the middle class is more or less getting eradicated. Soon we'll be emulating third world nations in income equality. Apparently to some folks in Congress, this is ideal.



What can we do to stem this tide? Should we just let the market decide? Man, a lot of people suddenly got lazy right after the financial crisis of 2008! The media is keeping us focused on stupid inconsequential things like small taxes on 'job creators' and... wait a minute, these people aren't poor at all!

"Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, questioned whether some people classified as poor or low-income actually suffer material hardship. He said that while safety-net programs have helped many Americans, they have gone too far, citing poor people who live in decent-size homes, drive cars and own wide-screen TVs."



See, the poor clearly aren't doing enough about their situation. A couple weeks of food could easily be acquired if they sold of all their appliances. I mean, ignoring the fact that most people rent so they can't sell their fridge, and nobody is going to buy a used microwave, but I'm sure the Heritage Foundation did their research while sipping martinis from their penthouse suites.

I'd like to imagine what this country would be like if we didn't follow through with The Reconstruction or The New Deal. I'd like to know what happened after LBJ's Great Society that made people think, "you know what, we shouldn't try to be the best country in the world anymore. As long as I'm personally happy, I don't care what happens to other people." That attitude is leaving us quite wanting.

Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57343397/census-data-half-of-u.s-poor-or-low-income/

Comments

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Don't listen to this Western imperialist capitalist propaganda. Production is up, living standards are rising according to projections, and everything is proceeding according to plan.

Err.. wait... wrong era.

[malakh-abaddon.livejournal.com]

Sounds a bit like 1984 and Animal Farm....

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

With roughly half the country being poor people, the middle class is more or less getting eradicated

Eradicated implies the situation is changing from what it was, and you really haven't shown that. A 2.7% increase of a newly defined category over 2-3 years during a large economic slowdown doesn't do it.

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

There's been an economic slowdown. They added examples of actual people who lost their jobs.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Compare to 1970.

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

Please do, your post didn't.

[kayjayuu.livejournal.com]

A family of four is considered "near poor" at $45K a year.

Forty-five thousand dollars. "Near poor" (must admit hadn't heard that one before, seriously).

Other than in the Big Cities (which have their own insane economies), what in the hell are we doing to ourselves, defining the term Poor in that manner? No, it's not necessarily abundant living for some people. But it's absolutely liveable. No one is guaranteed a fat amount of money to live off of in their life. And it sucks being one paycheck away from disaster -- I've lived that way most of my adult life. I'm there right now.

But to define how happy I can expect to be or to become by saying there's no way in hell that my life will be worth living because hey, I'm near poor according to this figure that the government came up with is, in my humble opinion, simply wrong and unethical.

There are real people in this country with real problems. Being told I'm at the bottom of some arbitrary ladder doesn't help me with my problems one bit.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

There are real people in this country with real problems. Being told I'm at the bottom of some arbitrary ladder doesn't help me with my problems one bit.

Exactly the problem with this argument. Even if we accept the arbitrary standing, it loses all meaning once you start looking at different areas for cost of living, look at the choices (yes, choices) some make in terms of priority, etc.

Not to mention the graph here utterly misses the point - it's not that appliances make you middle class, but that the poor are better off now even while poor than they were in generations past - that even the poor's lot is improving.

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

I knew a guy who's parents grew up in a house without electricity, this was nowhere close to unheard of back in the 50's.

Millionaire whines: I only have 400,000 left a year to feed my family. OH NOES.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

A family of four is considered "near poor" at $45K a year.

Nice spin, but the article didn't say that. "Low income." What's that?

bout 97.3 million Americans fall into a low-income category, commonly defined as those earning between 100 and 199 percent of the poverty level, based on a new supplemental measure by the Census Bureau that is designed to provide a fuller picture of poverty. Together with the 49.1 million who fall below the poverty line and are counted as poor, they number 146.4 million, or 48 percent of the U.S. population. That's up by 4 million from 2009, the earliest numbers for the newly developed poverty measure. The new measure of poverty takes into account medical, commuting and other living costs.

Now let's hear you fuss about the Tea-Party millionaire Representative from Louisiana, John Fleming who complained he only had 400,000 dollars to feed his family. (http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/09/tea-party-rep-only-400000-left-after-i-feed-my-family/) He's not rich, but he ain't my brother.

Re: Millionaire whines: I only have 400,000 left a year to feed my family. OH NOES.

[kayjayuu.livejournal.com]

From the AP:

Many middle-class Americans are dropping below the low-income threshold -- roughly $45,000 for a family of four....

Couple with:

"The reality is that prospects for the poor and the near poor are dismal," he said. "If Congress and the states make further cuts, we can expect the number of poor and low-income families to rise for the next several years."

So if the near poor/low income threshold is 199 percent of the poverty income threshold, and the poverty income threshold for a family of four in 2010 was $22K... voila, $45K, like the AP article said.

Whoa. My prospects are dismal, man. Dismal. I'm gonna go sink into a depression now.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

"With roughly half the country being poor people, the middle class is more or less getting eradicated. Soon we'll be emulating third world nations in income equality."

This isn't really the case. Half of the people in the US are now poor because we changed the definition of poor to include a whole bunch more people. If you look at our historical median income, it wasn't until 1997 that over half the people in the US wouldn't have been considered poor using the definition of making less than $45K for a family of four.

The real reason that income inequality is growing is that while both the poor and the rich are getting richer, the rich are getting richer very quickly while the poor and barely seeing any real income gains. This is certainly a problem but not the eradication of the middle class.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

There is economic mobility mainly among the bottom 10th, 20th, and 30th percentiles, but only between each other. Very rarely in the last ten years has anyone actually advanced to 'middle class'.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

The reality is that the majority see income mobility gains (http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/tax-policy/Documents/incomemobilitystudy03-08revise.pdf) over 10 year periods.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

Yes, changed the definition from one that was falsely optimistic to one that more accurately reflects the nature of socioeconomic status.

And everyone but the rich are losing ground these last several years, not making gains, while the former's income exponentiated.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

Reconstruction wasn't designed to make things better for the South. The Great Society and the New Deal were disasters. We raided the future for a better living then.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

It continually amazes me how you guys bash even the most rudimentary implementations of social safety nets given how it has worked for every country that has them for the last half-century, for some over a century.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Actually it was. The KKK was trying to re-impose slavery in all but name and was forced to settle for the milder segregation that existed. I daresay repressing a bunch of disgruntled sore losers in a civil war was a net benefit to both the South and the USA as a whole, as was the broadening of what was a US citizen. Albeit I'm sure to a certain variety of US conservative the North should have just let the http://home.gwu.edu/~jjhawkin/BlackCodes/BlackCodes.htm come into play and denied blacks right and manna would have rained from heaven with the USA a white man's country, right?

If that's not what you meant, you'd better have a very sophisticated and goddamn good reason of why land reform and civil rights for blacks was not an improvement for the South post-Civil War.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

The 3rd World is a political position, not a status. But, yes, the 3rd world was generally too poor to side with either the Soviets or Americans.

The fact that America has multiple consumer options suggests America is still not as poor some folks fear.

We will always have high end stores. The ones selling caviar, furs, diamonds and Bentleys. And it's probable that we'll always have used car salesmen selling Datsuns for $500. What's disappearing is the middle class, able to rise above Walmart and shop at Sears!

Yep.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

That's what happens when you break capitalism by deregulating it; break the free press by allowing it to consolidate into ownership by only 6 large corporations; break the republic itself with unchecked corruption.

It's not too late to fix it.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

SO the USA's going to be gaining the economic dynamism of Brazil, Bourbon France, and Imperial Russia? Gee, why is this the exact opposite of a comforting thought?

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

It's awesome that people who made way less in terms of income in other countries are not considered poor because of the lack of medical and housing expenses they experience.