Poverty in the United States

These figures are all disingenous. For example, people living in public housing are often considered "poor" yet, if you drive by the projects, you see nice cars in the parking lot, satellite dishes on the roofs and people talking on cell phones. Things that working people can't afford. So what makes these people so "poor" that we have to support them?

If you want to see true poverty, go to a third world country. Real poverty doesn't exist in the U.S.

you know how poverty is defined in the US today?

a family of four has to pull in less than $19,000 a year to be considered "poor" by the bean-counters (and something a bit more than that for a family of five and something a bit less for a family of three etc etc).

in the Bay Area a family of four pulling in $40,000 a year--more than twice the official poverty thresh-hold--is just scratching by.

the poverty stats are baked to make things look better than they are.

Don't look at the overall statistics. Look at the demographics of poverty. When you factor out major things you will see that poverty is concentrated in only a few areas. The number of people with a high school education, married, working full time is less than 2%. The vast majority of poverty is concentrated in family units headed by single women with little education, in high school dropouts, in rural areas, etc. For blacks the figures are skewed because of the extremely large number of black men who drop out of school, have felony convictions, and rarely work. The picture is really pretty predictable. When you fail in life, you are poor. When you stay in school, don't have kids until you are married and can AFFORD them, and work full time you will rarely be poor. And please don't bother to answer with some race baiting nonsense. No one is listening anymore.

Don't look at the overall statistics. Look at the demographics of poverty. When you factor out major things you will see that poverty is concentrated in only a few areas. The number of people with a high school education, married, working full time is less than 2%. The vast majority of poverty is concentrated in family units headed by single women with little education, in high school dropouts, in rural areas, etc. For blacks the figures are skewed because of the extremely large number of black men who drop out of school, have felony convictions, and rarely work. The picture is really pretty predictable. When you fail in life, you are poor. When you stay in school, don't have kids until you are married and can AFFORD them, and work full time you will rarely be poor. And please don't bother to answer with some race baiting nonsense. No one is listening anymore.

What matters is that *anyone* is poor. They are all poor for the same reason. It's not because the have "failed at life" but because, but because poverty is built into the system. Which individuals occupy the slot is irrelevant. as long as we tolerate capitalism, somebody will be poor. The way most people become poor is to be born that way. Stop blaming the victims. Most poor work very hard for their pittance. Most people are poor. Thirty to forty thousand a day die from starvation, almost all of them children. This is an intolerable situation. Capitalism is failure. It serves only the needs of the rich. The rest of us, ie. the majority of humanity, suffer because of it. Poverty will end when capitalism dies. The stake is poised above its heart. All we need to do is to take out our mallets and pound.

Poverty is the main thing that happens to people on earth. It's a global phenomenon. Most people are poor.

You're right. Most people in the world are poor. Most people in capitalist countries are NOT poor. Poverty exists in nations with subsistence agriculture, not where there are few farmers. We feed billions with American food grown by less than 2% of our population. Capitalism allows expansion, innovation, and improvement in lives and conditions. All your leftisit rhetoric will not change this. When nations move into democratic capitalist or democratic quasi-socialist market economies such as Europe everything improves. Collectivization is and was a disaster for the poor. Millions starved. Millions are still starving. Non-capitalist economies are doomed to poverty and stagnation. Look at Africa, the Arab world, North Korea, etc. When these governments are removed and their economies integrated into the world their lives will vastly improve, as has happened in the nations of Eastern Europe. Please let go of the stale 1960s rhetoric and try to evolve.

That's becsause the suck on the neck of the rest of the world.

Countries where most of the people living on subsistence agriculture were poor long before the United States or even capitalism as we know it ever existed.

Western colonialism, for all of its political persecution and genocide, ended up raising the welfare of the (surviving) indiginous peoples there. Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa were better off while under European colonial control than they are now.

Today, Western companies operating in developing countries tend to pay higher wages to their workers than the local companies. Western imports are causing tremendous economic growth in countries that are moving to capitalistic models, such as India and China. China now has nearly 10% GDP growth annually. This is a country that in the 1960's starved 10 million of its people in a horribly flawed, centrally communist planned agricultural program.

South Korea was dirt poor at the beginning of the century, and is now almost as rich as a Westernized country. The same thing goes for Singapore and Hong Kong, more examples of trade-lead growth.

That doesn't mean that South Korea or the others had totally open trade markets, mind you, just that they benefitted greatly from trade with the West.

>Western colonialism, for all of its political persecution and genocide, ended up raising the welfare of the (surviving) indiginous peoples there.

No it didn't. It slaughtered and enslaved them and stole everything they owned. Europe is rich today because it looted the the rest of the world.

>Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa were better off while under European colonial control than they are now.

All countries, everywhere, were better off *before* European colonial control.

In early 1900 average income was about $400 in the US
now every where outside of the very worst african countries have a higher average income than that.
average life span in developed countries was about 48 now even desperatly poor cpuntries have life expectancies far more than that.
Name a scale and you can see that it has been improved.

It"s sad to see so many mean spirited, ignorant and simplistic comments concerning the poor on IMC.

While there is a smaller percent of poor in the U.S. compared to the majority of countries, our record does not look so great when compared with many other Western countries.

As American, we are lucky that our granparents were able to steal a land very rich in natural resouces from the Indians. In many countries a bad climate and a lack of natural resouces makes it difficult not to be poor.

Many of the homeless in this countries are mentally handicapped people and also veterans who have had their heads schrewed up in wars. To suggest that there are no poor in America , or that the poor are entirely responsible for their problems is sick.

Most of us do not realize the great amount of poverty in the world. Africa does have the largest percentage of poor--with 47 percent of the population earnings less than $1 per day. In South Asia, 37 percent earn less
than $1 per day.

Peace

Those who seek to defend the present set-up invariably point to South Korea as vindication of market capitalism. Implicit in this line of defense is that South Korea constitutes a replicable model for sustained prosperity everywhere in the 21st century.

Rarely do they mention that:

--beginning in the Vietnam War-era, south korea was the recipient of massive aid from the United States which saw it as a necessary bulwark against communism in East Asia.
--south korean capitalism rose to where it now stands with the assistance of protectionism, import substitutionism, and a large state sector. these policies were tolerated because global capital's elites saw a stable East Asia as of paramount importance. this is no longer true.
--south korean's work more hours/year than any other people in the world.
--the ecological destruction wrought by the last thirty years of capitalist development in south korea has been truly massive.
--south korea's improved conditions haven't coincided with or contributed to improved conditions for workers elsewhere. no, investment and profits were pulled to it, and away from other prospective centers of activity. real wages in the United States have been trending downward for almost thirty years now, to give but one example.

> south korean capitalism rose to where it now stands with the assistance of protectionism, import substitutionism, and a large state sector. these policies were tolerated because global capital's elites saw a stable East Asia as of paramount importance.

The same policies generally speaking have been used throughout asia including in countries where the US's power is limited. they have colectively lead to the reduction in the relitive power of just about any reasonable group you might have atributed the title of "capitalist elite"
Why would the "global capitalist elites" for example support the current arangement of growth rates where their home countries so to speak have been regularly outcompeted year after year for decades
for example why would they support china so decicively over the USA or any of the more liberal states? the reason? because the above policies you have described arent "tools of global capitalism" global capitalism is a tool of them. If you want to consider it a fight they are kicking the ass of global capitalism.

> this is no longer true.

- then why are these countries still doing fine? The majority of those that arent doing well you can point to and tell them exactly what they are doing wrong (for example shooting each other like in liberia or palestine)

--south korean's work more hours/year than any other people in the world.
--the ecological destruction wrought by the last thirty years of capitalist development in south korea has been truly massive.

This gives us a two part solution the first is to stop countries from working to hard because if they work extra hours it will in a sense steal money from people who dont work as hard (in the same way that educated people in the US steal jobs from the many uneducated people that might replace them if they were not there).
This policy may well save jobs in the USA.
Unfortunatly it is REALLY difficult to enforce "your not allowed to work hard" laws on a foreign country without military conquest.

The second is to lower world GDP by lowering the standard of living of each person and reduce the population (maybe 1 billion people living at about botswana standards might be sustainable).

--south korea's improved conditions haven't coincided with or contributed to improved conditions for workers elsewhere. no, investment and profits were pulled to it, and away from other prospective centers of activity. real wages in the United States have been trending downward for almost thirty years now, to give but one example.

-A) The statistics you are using are the OECD numbers?. these appear to use an incorect calculation for wage rates.
B) USA share of GDP has falllen from maybe 40% to 20% over that time (so everyone else collectively has done better so even if USA had done badly that wouldnt say much)
C) Standard of living is up anyway due to advances in technology which are facilitated by patent laws globalization economies of scale of major corporations and a number of other factors
what is poverty now would be living like a king a few hundred years ago. (except for not having people to push around). So any measure of standard of living that gives even vaguely colose numbers is distorted because it fails to recognise technology advances.

I for example at times have lived FAR below the poverty line in my country (ie much less income) and yet have never felt anywhere near the sort of stress I would have had if I was born 100 years ago or in liberia etc etc.

that's just the way the U.S. seems to be. I live in poverty myself, and I say that it blows.