Posted on 03/08/2010 6:39:30 AM PST by reaganaut1
This week, the Obama administration announced it will create a new poverty-measurement system that will eventually displace the current poverty measure. This new measure, which has little or nothing to do with actual poverty, will serve as the propaganda tool in Obama’s endless quest to “spread the wealth.”
Under the new measure, a family will be judged “poor” if its income falls below a certain specified income threshold. Nothing new there, but, unlike the current poverty standards, the new income thresholds will have a built-in escalator clause: They will rise automatically in direct proportion to any rise in the living standards of the average American.
The current poverty measure counts absolute purchasing power — how much steak and potatoes you can buy. The new measure will count comparative purchasing power — how much steak and potatoes you can buy relative to other people. As the nation becomes wealthier, the poverty standards will increase in proportion. In other words, Obama will employ a statistical trick to ensure that “the poor will always be with you,” no matter how much better off they get in absolute terms.
The Left has promoted this idea of an ever-rising poverty measure for a long time. It was floated at the beginning of the War on Poverty and flatly rejected by Pres. Lyndon Johnson. Not so President Obama, who consistently seeks to expand the far-left horizons of U.S. politics.
The weird new poverty measure will produce very odd results. For example, if the real income of every single American were to magically triple over night, the new poverty measure would show there had been no drop in “poverty,” because the poverty income threshold would also triple. Under the Obama system, poverty can be reduced only if the incomes of the “poor” are rising faster
(Excerpt) Read more at article.nationalreview.com ...
Poverty equals less than 2 cars, 2 televisions, 2 game systems, a fully stocked bar, frozen food and potato chips, and a carton of cigarettes
You forgot the expensive cellphone for every member of the family.
Part of the “Spread the Wealth” campaign....surprised he has not declared a ‘Man-Caused Poverty Contingency Operation’...... =.=
...the new income thresholds will have a built-in escalator clause: They will rise automatically in direct proportion to any rise in the living standards of the average American.The federal graduated income tax, on the other hand...
The existing poor standards in the U.S.A. is repetitively wealthy by other EUROPEAN standards!
How much higher will they go?
Since the average American standard of living is falling, that means these folks will get LESS, right? Right?
Median world income is $2/day per person.
If you’re making more than half the people on the planet, you’re not poor.
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I don’t know if that is a real statistic or not but if it is it is a very misleading one. It is obvious that anyone with an ACTUAL total income of two dollars per day is going to die.
And that, my FRiend, is exactly what they want. That includes the traitors that voted for them.
This is not measuring poverty. This is measuring economic inequality. This is institutionalizing class warfare.
Argh, you beat me to it.
I was going to say exactly the same thing.
:-P
Don’t forget the 50’ sailboat in the marina, too!
That’s an inherent human right, right there... ya know!
:-P
It ceases to be a matter of sustenance and becomes a matter of pride and envy. Have to give the Rats credit for being audacious, but none of this stuff is going to last once the Pubs wrest control back.
Real statistic. There is, for most practical purposes, no poverty in America - only class envy, and gross ignorance about what most humans live on.
Yes, you can live on $2/day.
In particular, when your government does not mandate living standards so high it seems impossible.
“Yes, you can live on $2/day.”
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Yeah, right. A person can live on zero cash income if he can go out in the wilderness and survive on wild game and fish etc. but there is no way that a person can buy the barest necessities of even the most minimal life on two dollars a day. If I grow my own food or catch my own food I am not living on two dollars a day even if that is all the cash income I have.
[shrug] And so ignorance becomes policy.
Okay, I have never enjoyed being ignorant, so tell me how a person lives on two dollars a day and don’t say he grows a garden, catches fish, builds a hut out of sticks etc. I want to know how a person BUYS the necessities of even the most meager existence with two dollars a day, please.
Fine. I won't.
“Fine. I won’t.”
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Then I must be right, no one can “live” on two dollars a day. They may very well be able to survive on two dollars a day or less in actual money but that is not taking into account imputed income. Back in the seventies my wife and I were spending an astonishingly small amount at the grocery store but we were growing huge gardens, catching fish from the stream bordering our land, growing chickens for eggs and meat, growing rabbits for meat etc. All that has a monetary value. I have always done my own home repairs including roofing, electrical work, flooring etc. I maintain eight acres with grape vines, berry bushes etc. I work on my own tractor, I have a small backhoe that I have kept running by doing my own repairs. If I tried to live the same lifestyle and pay someone else to do everything I couldn’t come close to doing it on the income that I have now as a retired person. My imputed income is at least equal to my actual cash income.
Non-sequitur.
Non-sequitur.
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Suit yourself but you haven’t shown any evidence that what I say is wrong. I guess I won’t get to hear how someone actually lives on two dollars a day. Claiming non sequitur (the dash is not needed by the way) is an easy way out I suppose.
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