Compared to poverty in America and the rest of the world is America really that bad off?

Question

I know the logical answer is "no" but I've got a few questions and am interested in what other people thought.

1. Whats the difference between poverty in America VS other countrys (poverty rate, living standards)?

2. How much aide is the US government giving to other countries VS how much US government gives to America?

3.Compared to poverty rate today and the past how will poverty be in the future?

4. Poverty VS Education - Does your education backround really have anything to do with being well off, middle class or poor?

Answer 1

#1 - the feeling around the world is that for such a rich country to have the poverty it does is shameful,

#2 What do you mean "gives to America"? Almost all the money the government collects is spent in the U.S. Are you distinguishing between money paid to government employees, money paid in social security, and money paid in medicare?

The U.S. government gives 0.16% (1 part in 600) of its gross national income in direct foreign aid.

http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated...

But very little of this is without strings - we give many loans to other countries to buy military equipment from American companies. Do you really want to include this?

http://qesdb.usaid.gov/gbk/About.html

#3. The definition of poverty keeps changing so this is hard to do in a meaningful way. And then there is the problem of is your measure the number of poor or the percentage of poor?

I expect that in the future there will be a major reduction of number of people on this planet - whether from war, disease, famine, etc. I can't say - which means the absolute number of poor will go down.

#4 Absolutely. Not only is and has always been the case that comparatively few of the educated are poor, the trend has increased as the society has become more technological.

As for being rich vs. education, few of the really rich (top 1%) are very well educated (advanced academic degrees as opposed to bachelors and vocational (doctor, lawyer) degrees. Doctors and dentists get paid more than lawyers, who get paid more than marketing managers, who get paid more than research scientists, etc.:

http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.h...