[Verginius Rufus]

The headline is ridiculous. Most of today's poor have stuff that even middle-class people didn't have 50 or 75 years ago. Not only was unemployment much higher in the 1930s than now, but the deprivations suffered by the poor were much worse.

In Grapes of Wrath the Joad kids when staying in a government camp flush a toilet without realizing what they are doing, and think they have broken it--they had never seen a flush toilet before.

Go back another 100 years and the lifestyle of the average person was much worse than that of an extremely poor person now.

[cripplecreek]

A lot of the old folks around my hometown were depression era orphans. I used to listen to them talk about coming to town on the train and being “adopted” by local farmers right there on the spot.