Americans do you know the Real truth about our "Poor" ?

Question

Acording to Robert Rechter of the Heritage Foundation.org (his latest research) shows that 46% of the poor own their homes,80% have air conditioning in their homes,75% own at least one car.What is wrong with this picture and the constant c**p we hear from the libs about "the poor"!

Answer 1

America's poor are rich compared to most countries in the world.

Answer 2

Perhaps most perverse about poverty in America is that obesity rates are highest among the poor.  There are other countries out there where being poor means starving.

Answer 3

I can see you have no idea

Answer 4

Americans only know what the secret government that has been running America since 1963 wants them to know about anything.

The CIA was formed in 1947 and started recruiting terrorists to invade Cuba during the late 1950s. They found that gaining control of the Newspapers and other media sources were successful and they have been using them on Americans as well ever since.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAE...

Answer 5

Once again, Rush only reported half of the story.  Rechter is actually in favor of raising the poverty line from $17,000/yr to $25,000 a year for families of four.

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows...

You may want to check the rest of your facts, too.  They aren't very accurate....

Answer 6

I know the truth about poverty.

The truth is that poor in American is not and should NEVER be compared to poor in a THIRD world Country, because we aren't one.

You're poor in America if you can't read when you graduate  from high school, risk your life to walk home from school, can't be sure bullets won't fly through your children's windows at night,  have to take the bus which costs you more time in the day, live in 110 degree in summer texas with ONE air conditioner so the whole family sleeps in the same room at night and yes, I lived through that myself.

poor is not just about getting up and doing the right thing every day its about struggling through the day so that  you can get to that opportunity to do the right thing!

Answer 7

Compared to people in other countries these people are not poor, but that is not the issue.  The issue is that compared to the cost of living in this country they are poor.  What you forget to mention is that many of these people are one paycheck from being homeless.  How many times do they skip dinner so their kids can eat?  How many of them do not have health insurance or limited insurance or that one major illness will put them on the streets?  They might have one car but what kind of condition is it in? You need to look more at the big picture and not just some numbers.

These are people who work their buts off just to stay even and you call this "constant c**p"!!!  These people should be commended not ridiculed as you have done.

Answer 8

In America, the only reason why people remain in poverty long term are:

1) They don't work hard/smart enough.

2) They have some physical or mental infirmity that temporarily or permanently keeps them from earning a decent living.

The bulk of the poor fall under that first category and are looking for someone else to solve their problems.

Its something that people are taught:

The classic anecdotal woman from New Orleans after Katrina said, "*Who*'s going to pay my bills?" instead of, "How am *I* going to pay my bills?"

The people of Mississippi got together and started cleaning up and rebuilding as soon as the storm was over.

The people of New Orleans looked for someone to blame and for a handout.

The people that fall under number 2 above, where there is a real dysfunction, *do* need to have a safety net but they also need to live up to some expectations, ie, working at whatever level they are capable of in exchange for their benefits, drug and alcohol testing for benefits recipients,  mandatory job training.

For anyone that can think, learn, or move heavy objects there is no excuse for poverty in America and I have little to no sympathy for them.

Answer 9

What I find to be the "real truth" about America is how apathetic towards the poor many people have become.  Do you really think that just because 46% of the poor own their homes that there is no issue at all?  And why would you think  that "the poor" is just a cause for "the libs."  Your statistics offer a very myopic presentation without context.  Poor doesn't have to mean homeless.  These statistics don't offer any insight into the CONDITION of these people's lives.  Poor can mean barely making it and constantly having to struggle just to keep yourself and your children in that home you might own.  Also, many of these homes are very sub-standard and too small for a family.  And just because you might own a car doesn't mean it's a reliable car.  They might have a $500 car that constantly breaks down, but that's all they can afford.  I don't like this question  because it depicts the poor as a highly polarized issue.  The poor shouldn't be an issue of division.  Everyone should be united on helping the poor.  These are PEOPLE that EVERYONE (conservatives and liberals) should have concern for.  This question just seems heartless and cold to me.  What are you trying to prove by your statistics?  Even if those are true numbers, they are without context -- and more importantly, without heart.  And what do these numbers REALLY do for those people who need help?  Even by trying to minimize our country's problem with the marginalized in society, it still doesn't eradicate it.  These numbers just give people like you a feeling of "justification" for your apathy and complacency.

Answer 10

As Mark Twain once said about statistics  "Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable."

According to The Christian Science Monitor :  

Except for the citizens of a few tiny oil kingdoms and Luxembourg, Americans on average live better than anybody else.

Germans? Forget it. Americans' standard of living is 30 percent higher. The British? The gap's even wider.

But if the United States is so rich, critics ask, how come its poor are poorer than almost anywhere else in the developed world?

Consider Canada. Its median per capita gross domestic product (GDP), that is, the output of goods and services for the typical Canadian, is 19 percent below the median in the US. Nevertheless, the poorest 18 percent of Canadians remain better off, on average, than the poorest 18 percent of Americans.

The contrast is even starker in oil-rich Norway, where the poorest 38 percent of the people fare better, on average, than the poorest 38 percent of Americans, despite a lower median per capita GDP.

The reason? America's woefully unequal distribution of income.

The US House of Representatives is poised this week to stretch that inequality still further by repealing completely after 2010 the already diminished estate tax. Relatively few estates today are taxable. By 2011, heirs to the richest 600 or so estates would no longer owe any inheritance taxes either.

Caught between liberals who decry the obvious inequality and conservatives who could, correctly, point out that the top 62 percent of Americans are considerably better off than the top 62 percent of Norwegians, the US Senate may resist such a sweeping change in estate taxation.

But beyond the political debate, raw numbers tell the story.

The US has the worst distribution of income of any well-to-do country. In a list of 30 prosperous nations, including smaller economies such as Taiwan and Israel, only Russia and Mexico have a greater maldistribution of income than the US.

"We choose to let the market determine most everything," says Timothy Smeeding, a public policy professor at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, who compiled these inequality numbers. "We do far less on the social side. We have not as good a safety net. The priorities aren't there. Other countries make other choices."

Under Prime Minister Tony Blair, for example, Britain has made a costly and concerted effort to help its poorest families have a more equal chance for the education and other benefits that money can provide. Now, 5 percent of Britain's poor are better off than America's poor. Before 1995, none were.

In the US, both Republicans and Democrats voted several years ago to reform the welfare system - a change that Professor Smeeding generally approves. As a result, the number of those on welfare, often women with children, declined from 5 million in 1994 to 2.2 million in 2000.

But that reform "transformed the welfare poor into the working poor," he adds. They earn minimum wage, or just a bit better, and receive insufficient support from the government in the way of child care, earned income tax credits, cheap housing, and other assistance to rise out of poverty.

That lack of government support makes them poorer than those in countries with stronger safety nets. At the request of the Monitor, two of Smeeding's colleagues, Lee Rainwater and Markus Jantti, calculated the point at which residents of several other wealthy nations are better off in purchasing power than those similarly placed on the US income ladder. Besides the Canadian and Norwegian examples above, 12 percent of the poorest Finns, Swedes, and Dutch do better on average than the poorest 12 percent in the US; 15 percent of the German poor outdo 15 percent of the American poor; and 20 percent of Belgian poor beat the US poor.

Smeeding also compared the poverty of American children (using the income of their families) with that of children in the world's 19 richest nations. He finds that the US stands among those with the highest child-poverty rates when the comparison is made on the basis of purchasing power. In most cases, foreign poor children are far better off.

"Our low-income children are at a serious economic disadvantage compared to their counterparts in other nations," he concludes.

Of course, well-to-do American families, far ahead of most prosperous families in the other nations, can provide their children with all the benefits their good incomes can provide - nutritious food, computer courses, travel, expensive universities, etc. They get a degree, develop a good career, find a suitable educated marriage partner, and have probably one or two kids.

These advantages can put them well ahead in life - reinforcing what some observers see as a growing class structure in the US as the income distribution has worsened in recent decades.

But what about the poor children in America? Are they being left behind?

Whatever one thinks about income inequality, if the US doesn't do a better job in supporting the children of low-income families, says Smeeding, the nation faces "a rough future. They will be a drag on themselves and on our whole economy."

-- Speaking purely anecdotally, I live outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  When I drive through the poor sections of the city I see children who never ever stood a fair chance in this land of "equal opportunity."  Kids who are already morbidly obese at 7 years old because - hey try finding anything to nourish your mind and body with in the inner city but junk food.  Imagine going to subpar schools (and the decline in public education in the past 10 years only is deplorable) & trying to fight your way to college.

For what it's worth, I was around at the inception of so-called "welfare-reform."  I was working for a women's shelter.  I saw women who had struggled hard to build a life for themselves and their children & were attending college, forced to quit school to become the working poor.  

Anyone who doesn't believe that we have a serious problem with poverty in this country needs to revisit the newsclips of the devastation following Katrina.

Land of equal opportunity my a**.

Dinah makes an excellent point.  See the report cited below by the Economic Policy Institute (well, that is if you are interested in actually LEARNING, as opposed to buying the propogandized BS soundbites the govt and media spews at you):

Answer 11

I don't know how they are defining "poor" but I've been to several third world countries and compared to them we don't have any poor people. We may have low income people, even "disadvantaged" people but no "poor" people. I would also say that the poor in the third world countries I've been to are entitled to a lot more self respect than the "homeless" in this country. The only people I EVER saw beg were obviously physically unable to work. The "will work for food" crowd in this country makes me sick after what I've seen. Ever tried offering them a job for food?

Answer 12

Poverty in the U.S. does not exist, at least compared to the poor in other countries. There are two reasons for this, the first being freedom, and the second being the free market economy. Free markets/capitalism is the most compassionate economical system the world has ever seen. In the U.S., it is very easy to rise above the economic situation you were born into. If you don't want to live in poverty here, there are just a few easy steps to take. First, get the best education you can afford. Second, when you get a job keep it until you get a better job. Third, don't have children until you can afford them. Fourth, don't have children out of wedlock.

And just a note , while the top 2% own a lot in the U.S., they also pay more than 50% of the income taxes. And the top 10% pay 90% of the income taxes.

Answer 13

Some of their economic indices for poor are really middle class. I think they use it for emotional gain - the poor, the children, the elderly. My parents generation is the richest this country has ever seen and to listen to the media  you would think all the old folks were eating cat food.

Answer 14

I once heard the government agency that accesses the amount of poor uses the same algorithm they did back in the 30's & 40's, when food was the most expensive item.

Now, things like AC (which is virtually required in very hot parts of the country) are obviously very expensive compared to the price of food.

And in response to the comment that the poor are the most obese, walk into a McDonalds and price the difference between a salad (things that grow from the ground) and a double cheeseburger (raised cattle, turned beef & factory-converted milk.)  Which one should be more expensive, and which one actually is?

Answer 15

The poor are that way because of their own behaviors. they are not going hungry. free breakfast in school. free lunch in school, and lots of school have weekend take home bags of food for kids.  Churches donate food to the needy, the community break basket gives food to the needy. at Christmas time you can't swing a dead turkey without hitting someone who is getting free food.

Why is it that all over the world the poorest of the poor always end up with kids they cannot feed.  Looks like a s*x must be a good subsitute for food.  Then why aren't poor people in America skinng?

Answer 16

Unlike the vast majority of countries in the world those born into poverty have a real chance to escape it in the USA. Talent and effort are rewarded in this country. There is an underclass that for the most part do not take advantage of the opportunities that are available. Whether through ignorance, laziness or unwillingness they fail to utilize the free education system that would allow them to better their lives. If I can do it so can you. The market system of deciding winners and losers in society may not always be fair but it is always better than allowing government officials to decide who wins.

Answer 17

define poor

Answer 18

Poverty is an important and emotional issue. Last year, the Census Bureau released its annual report on poverty in the United States declaring that there were nearly 35 million poor persons living in this country in 2002, a small increase from the preceding year. To understand poverty in America, it is important to look behind these numbers--to look at the actual living conditions of the individuals the government deems to be poor.

For most Americans, the word "poverty" suggests destitution: an inability to provide a family with nutritious food, clothing, and reasonable shelter. But only a small number of the 35 million persons classified as "poor" by the Census Bureau fit that description. While real material hardship certainly does occur, it is limited in scope and severity. Most of America's "poor" live in material conditions that would be judged as comfortable or well-off just a few generations ago. Today, the expenditures per person of the lowest-income one-fifth (or quintile) of households equal those of the median American household in the early 1970s, after adjusting for inflation.1

The following are facts about persons defined as "poor" by the Census Bureau, taken from various government reports:

Forty-six percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.

Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.

The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)

Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars.

Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.

Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.

Seventy-three percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.

As a group, America's poor are far from being chronically undernourished. The average consumption of protein, vitamins, and minerals is virtually the same for poor and middle-class children and, in most cases, is well above recommended norms. Poor children actually consume more meat than do higher-income children and have average protein intakes 100 percent above recommended levels. Most poor children today are, in fact, supernourished and grow up to be, on average, one inch taller and 10 pounds heavier that the GIs who stormed the beaches of Normandy in World War II.

While the poor are generally well-nourished, some poor families do experience hunger, meaning a temporary discomfort due to food shortages. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), 13 percent of poor families and 2.6 percent of poor children experience hunger at some point during the year. In most cases, their hunger is short-term. Eighty-nine percent of the poor report their families have "enough" food to eat, while only 2 percent say they "often" do not have enough to eat.

Overall, the typical American defined as poor by the government has a car, air conditioning, a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave. He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His home is in good repair and is not overcrowded. By his own report, his family is not hungry and he had sufficient funds in the past year to meet his family's essential needs. While this individual's life is not opulent, it is equally far from the popular images of dire poverty conveyed by the press, liberal activists, and politicians.

Of course, the living conditions of the average poor American should not be taken as representing all the poor. There is actually a wide range in living conditions among the poor. For example, over a quarter of poor households have cell phones and telephone answering machines, but, at the other extreme, approximately one-tenth have no phone at all. While the majority of poor households do not experience significant material problems, roughly a third do experience at least one problem such as overcrowding, temporary hunger, or difficulty getting medical care.

The best news is that remaining poverty can readily be reduced further, particularly among children. There are two main reasons that American children are poor: Their parents don't work much, and fathers are absent from the home.

In good economic times or bad, the typical poor family with children is supported by only 800 hours of work during a year: That amounts to 16 hours of work per week. If work in each family were raised to 2,000 hours per year--the equivalent of one adult working 40 hours per week throughout the year--nearly 75 percent of poor children would be lifted out of official poverty.

Father absence is another major cause of child poverty. Nearly two-thirds of poor children reside in single-parent homes; each year, an additional 1.3 million children are born out of wedlock. If poor mothers married the fathers of their children, almost three-quarters would immediately be lifted out of poverty.

While work and marriage are steady ladders out of poverty, the welfare system perversely remains hostile to both. Major programs such as food stamps, public housing, and Medicaid continue to reward idleness and penalize marriage. If welfare could be turned around to encourage work and marriage, remaining poverty would drop quickly.

What Is Poverty?

For most Americans, the word "poverty" suggests destitution: an inability to provide a family with nutritious food, clothing, and reasonable shelter. For example, the "Poverty Pulse" poll taken by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development in 2002 asked the general public the question: "How would you describe being poor in the U.S.?" The overwhelming majority of responses focused on homelessness, hunger or not being able to eat properly, and not being able to meet basic needs.2

But if poverty means lacking nutritious food, adequate warm housing, and clothing for a family, relatively few of the 35 million people identified as being "in poverty" by the Census Bureau could be characterized as poor.3 While material hardship does exist in the United States, it is quite restricted in scope and severity. The average "poor" person, as defined by the government, has a living standard far higher than the public imagines

Answer 19

I read the question than I read ALL the answers. I couldn't help wondering how many "poor" people participated in this discussion. Also almost everyone are talking about material things, what about educations. How many educated poor people are in this report, that I am sure not a lot of people know about. Some people also buy expensive sneakers because it last longer. Being poor is different to everyone. I think poverty in the so called developing countries can not be compared to poverty in say the US, UK or Europe.

Poverty will never go away but we as a people should try and help each other as we can.

Answer 20

Poor is no place to live, not enough clothing, not enough food, no employment.  The government threshold for "poor" is arbitrary and meaningless.

Answer 21

Oh; well........if a non-biased, totally objective institute like the Heritage Foundation published this research, I KNOW it's true.