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 ...
Thanks for the reply but apparently I am not making myself clear. What I am saying is this, the only standard I have to judge by is what two dollars a day in American money means IN AMERICA. Figures for other nations should be adjusted to equivalency. I still defy anyone to explain to me how someone can live on two dollars a day in America or the equivalent purchasing power in some other country. I still say it is not possible regardless of what claims are made.
Two dollars a day in this country will not buy food to keep one person alive let alone any of the other necessities. I saw a program on TV years ago about factory workers in Mexico, the storyline was that American manufacturing was going to Mexico because they could pay the workers something like eighty cents an hour. Then they showed film of these factory workers going out at night and dancing to live music, they were all wearing nice clothes and had their hair looking as though it was professionally done.
The point is that while the company may have been spending eighty cents an hour American to hire those workers they were able to buy far more with the pesos they were paid than anyone can buy with eighty cents an hour in this country. Apparently the exchange ratio was very favorable to the Mexican workers but it was being reported simply that they were living on “eighty cents an hour”. In reality eighty cents an hour at the time would not have paid the expenses of going to work if it bought no more than it buys in this country.
Am I making myself clear or is this all non sequitur too? Or maybe it seems nonsensical, I don’t know, it seems clear to me. Here is an excerpt from one report on India.
“While the World Bank standards are serviceable as benchmarks for progress—if fewer people are living on $2 today than were 10 years ago, that’s great—they don’t give an accurate picture of poverty in an individual country. For example, nearly 70 percent of Indians still live in villages, many in rent-free ancestral homes. They won’t soon buy a Nano, but they can easily feed and clothe themselves and their children. Their main worries—poor schools, contaminated water, and limited access to health care—aren’t necessarily solved by a modest income hike. In contrast, a $2-per-day laborer in Mumbai would spend nearly his entire income on a modest shanty in one of Mumbai’s notorious slums.”
“Mindful of this difference, the Indian government uses a flexible poverty line that varies with area of residence. Those who live in rural areas are considered impoverished if they makes less than 66 cents per day; the threshold for city-dwellers is 83 cents per day. India also adjusts the status for people who are cash poor but enjoy family assets, like a house or arable land.”
This makes it obvious that they cannot be talking about the same thing as two dollars a day in America. It says they can easily feed and clothe themselves and their children. Try that in America on two dollars a day!
Two dollars a day may buy enough of the Indian currency to feed and clothe them and their children but to claim that they are supporting their family on two dollars a day is very misleading.
Point made, but disagreed with.
If you are better off than half the people on the planet, you are doing well enough to take care of yourself and not give Leftists an excuse to steal more out of taxpayer pockets.
Apparently the point was totally lost because I have no idea what on Earth you mean by that reply. Let’s not waste each other’s time. Have a good life.
And it seems you missed mine from the beginning. Ah well...
(Just 'cuz the subject amuses/interests me...)
Actually, yes. I can easily live on $1 per meal (look for my new blog soon!), and can reduce that to $1 per day for food if need be (and yes that's store-bought food; for $1 I can buy enough seeds to grow food providing sustenance for weeks). You may be shocked at how little other FReepers live on according to the ongoing Living on Nothing thread (a great read!).
This nation was pioneered by people who had little or no income, going deep into the woods and growing/building everything from there; they turned nothing into success.
Even today, there is far more available in this country for dirt-cheap or free than you realize. Education? the whole of MIT coursework for free. Land? several towns will give you land outright if only you build a house on it (with "house" loosely defined). Food? seeds from the Dollar Store and a shovel for next to nothing.
Try that in America on two dollars a day!
Many do, and get by quite nicely. Yeah, it's not "up to par", but it's certainly no reason to rob taxpayer pockets in the perpetuation of class warfare.
I probably know more about growing food than you do, I grew up walking behind a mule, LITERALLY, no joke, Okay?
Get over this idea that if you buy a dollars worth of seed and grow enough food for weeks you are eating for weeks on a dollar. You are eating for weeks on a dollar and a lot of labor, just because you are not paid in cash for that labor does not mean that it has no value.
If someone offered me the run of an abandoned junkyard and I managed to piece together a running automobile after weeks of hard work would you say I got a free car? If the answer is yes then you just have no idea what I am trying to say to you.
Every time someone like you has told me how to live on nothing it turns out that they mean do without all but the most basic things and ignore completely the concept of imputed income.
I know all about those pioneers, they didn’t live on nothing, they lived on hard work, the kind of hard work that very few people now can even conceive of. I CAN conceive of it because I did that kind of hard work for most of my first eighteen years and what I got for it was food, clothing, shelter, a high school education and a very few non necessities and probably a total of a hundred dollars to spend as I saw fit in the whole eighteen years. Did I live eighteen years on a hundred dollars? I don’t think so.
If some people heard of a man who was offered a bunk in a six by eight foot storage building and food to eat in exchange for working on a farm every day with no cash income offered they would claim he had discovered how to live on zero income.
The original statement said nothing about “imputed”.
You’re arguing about something other than what I posted.
The original statement said nothing about “imputed”.
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That is true and that is why I said that it is a misleading statistic. A person’s TRUE income is his cash income plus his imputed income, for some people the cash income is all of it but for others the imputed income is far greater than the cash income. I have a fireplace and I have plenty of hardwood trees, if I turn off the central heat and cut wood to heat my house am I heating for nothing? Not in my book. I am simply working cutting wood for IMPUTED income rather than selling the firewood for cash. That is why I quarrel with reports that report a miniscule income and say that people are “living” on that income. That is why I don’t believe that all these people are “living” on two dollars a day or less. There was one news report that showed pictures of a man who claims to be Barack Obama’s half brother and he is reported to be “living” on less than a dollar a month! Tell me that isn’t absurd. Without consideration of imputed income a person who survives without any cash income is “living on nothing” as the title of your thread implies. Show me someone who actually lives on “nothing” and I will show you a dead body.
Actually imputed income is much to be preferred because at this time the vampires in DC haven’t figured out a way to tax it. They are working on it though, schemes have been proposed but not passed into law...YET.
As an aside to this, have you seen the reports of people who have a net worth of over a million dollars but are listed by the government as living below poverty level? It actually is possible in this country, a family can own a farm or ranch worth a million or more, grow their own food, drive old vehicles and tractors that they maintain for themselves and live on a cash income that is a dollar less than the official “poverty” line and be listed as living in poverty.
Ok, so we're on par. My family grew half our own food; I don't consider it "imputed income". We DID buy a dollar's worth of seed and grew enough food for weeks, ergo we were eating for weeks on a dollar. We cut & split wood for heat for free (if felling trees ourselves) or cheap (if having whole logs dumped). We even made our own maple syrup. We could have raised _all_ our own food, meat included, but chose to draw the line where we did. Being industrious, laboring to enjoy the fruits thereof without involving someone else's currency, is laudable - and my very point in such discussions as this.
If someone can own or rent property, and cultivate it for adequate sustenance, with otherwise little or no actual income, then they fit the original scale I referred to. Free run of a junkyard to build, with effort, a "free" car? sounds like a $0 win to me! Yes, I understand what you mean, and reject the notion: creative effort and opportunities taken DOES let one live on few dollars per day. There are towns that will GIVE you land, if only you build a humble home thereon - sounds like free real estate to me, so long as your creativity can produce a house for cheap (yes, that's doable too; I've been offered free houses for the taking, in whole or pieces). $1 at the Dollar Store garners a whole lotta seeds; plant them well.
I understand, but reject, your use of "imputed income" here, and that includes barter. I'm not saying that one's work has no value. I'm saying that with very little currency (or trade plainly in lieu thereof) one can indeed get by, providing for one's own basic sustenance. It's the core notion of independence.
What this little exchange does point out is the fuzziness of the notion of "income". As we head for Galt's Gulch, exploring this fog is a worthy endeavor. Living on nothing does not preclude hard work.
I had to check twice.
As far as I can tell from that post you understand nothing! You can reject all you want to but you are still refusing to see reality.
According to your reasoning if some kind person sold you three months worth of food for a dollar or you bought a dollar’s worth of seed and by dint of much hard work grew enough food to last three months you are living three months for a dollar either way. If you can’t see any difference between those two you are hopeless.
Of course I see a difference. Either way, however, you need a dollar to make it happen.
If you see the difference why do you keep wanting to tell me I am wrong? That is basically all I have been saying all along, sure it takes a dollar either way but it is NOT the same thing. One is living on a dollar, the other way is living on a dollar and a LOT OF LABOR. What counts in this world is how many hours you have to labor to buy a living. Money is just a way of keeping score and sometimes not a very good one.
Don’t bother taking the trouble to tell me you still reject what I am saying.
Maybe it’s that your passion for the issue fascinates me.
I have a passion for living in the real world, I know all too well what happens when I start trying to live in the air castles that I am so adept at constructing. A large part of the population is trying to live in an air castle.
Soon we will only be able to afford air shacks.
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