Poor with Section 8 housing, Title 20 childcare, food stamps, Obamaphones and WIC for all the milk, cheese and cereal they can eat, along with free breakfasts and lunches for the kiddies.
We have the richest poor people in the world.
There was an obit going around on the net a while back of a 25 year old "entrepreneur" from New Orleans. This fellow had 13 kids. Each of his siblings had similar broods. Somebody added up all the various welfare trinkets he would be entitled to (and was no doubt receiving) and it was estimated that he would be "making" over $156,000/year in direct benefits to him and his 13 kids from state and Federal sources.
Having worked in several 3rd world countries I can tell you with absolute confidence that Americans have NO IDEA what real poverty is all about. The poorest of the poor in this country are wealthy beyond the imaginations of folks I saw in Nicaragua.
NY City talk radio (I think it was the John Gambling show on WOR) was talking about Obama spending billions for "free wireless access for poor inner city families"), or something to that affect.
Those in the studio were speechless, and asking the same questions about this madness that you are probably asking.
“...We have the richest poor people...”
Ain’t that the truth. I like the pics of our designer sneaker-clad First Lady serving up food in a “soup line” and all the “poor” pulling out their cell phones to take her picture.
Well, if my husband’s construction business goes bankrupt, our family will be among the poor. Hard working American families who are dealing with long-term unemployment are among the poor. We get calls from men looking for work, men in their 40s, 50s, and they all tell me the same thing, “I’ve never been out of work before in my life.”
This is the future of American poverty. Families like mine who are out of work for month after mine, use their savings, sell what they can, and then start living off retirement and anything invested. Pretty soon there’s nothing left. Do they move in with family? Can they even get ANY job? Assuming they have been good stewards and responsible, this scenario is still highly possible.
Just about any family is six months or less from that scenario, so please don’t assume it’s only the chronically unemployed and unemployed-by-choice who make up this 1 in 7.
One more thing, 60% of Argentinians were at the poverty level by 2003, following their late 1990’s economic collapse. We could hit numbers that high by the time Obama and the Demonrats are done with us.
Understanding Poverty in America (What the Census doesn’t count when reporting on the “poor.”)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2336385/posts
The average person identified as “poor” by the government has a living standard far higher than the public imagines. According to the government’s own surveys, the typical “poor” American has cable or satellite TV, two color TVs, and a DVD player or VCR. He has air conditioning, a car, a microwave, a refrigerator, a stove, and a clothes washer and dryer. He is able to obtain medical care when needed. 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 affluent, it is far from the images of dire poverty conveyed by liberal activists and politicians.
Conventional accounts of poverty not only exaggerate hardship, they also underestimate government spending on the poor. In 2008, federal and state governments spent $714 billion (or 5 percent of the total economy) on means-tested welfare aid, providing cash, food, housing, medical care, and targeted social services to poor and low-income Americans. (This sum does not include Social Security or Medicare.) If converted into cash, this aid would be nearly four times the amount needed to eliminate poverty in the U.S. by raising the incomes of all poor households above the federal poverty levels.