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The Truth About Poverty in America If the U.S. "poor" were a nation, then it would be one of the world's richest.
Frontpage Magazine ^ | 6/5/2020 | Walter Williams

Posted on 06/05/2020 9:53:52 AM PDT by RightGeek

A recent study by Just Facts, an excellent source of factual information, shows that after accounting for income, charity and noncash welfare benefits such as subsidized health care, housing, food stamps and other assistance programs, "the poorest 20% of Americans consume more goods and services than the national averages for all people in the world's most affluent countries." This includes the majority of countries that are members of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, including its European members. The Just Facts study concludes that if the U.S. "poor" were a nation, then it would be one of the world's richest.

As early as 2010, 43% of all poor households owned their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage and a porch or patio. Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning. The typical poor American has more living space than the average non-poor individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens and other cities throughout Europe. Ninety-seven percent of poor households have one or more color televisions — half of which are connected to cable, satellite or a streaming service. Some 82% of poor families have one or more smartphones. Eighty-nine percent own microwave ovens and more than a third have an automatic dishwasher. Most poor families have a car or truck and 43% own two or more vehicles.

(Excerpt) Read more at frontpagemag.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
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More at the link
1 posted on 06/05/2020 9:53:52 AM PDT by RightGeek
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To: RightGeek

Still waiting on postcards from the better place to live.


2 posted on 06/05/2020 9:58:49 AM PDT by rktman ( #My2ndAmend! ----- Enlisted in the Navy in '67 to protect folks rights to strip my rights. WTH?)
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To: RightGeek

I mean anyone is ever lived in a poor area and work their way out of it knows that the people that around them were fat happy and lazy and had a lot of material goods.


3 posted on 06/05/2020 9:59:12 AM PDT by snarkytart
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To: RightGeek

Even though our poor have it better than anybody else’s poor, it is still hard to be the last in line wherever you are. You see that everybody has better things than you do, more opportunities than you have, and more options.

I get your point that our poor are not destitute. They don’t suffer or starve or be exploited the way most of the world’s poor does. But it still sucks being poor. It always sucks to look around at everybody else and know you are among those in the worst shape. It doesn’t matter that your shape is only bad instead of dismal.

But yes, I get your point.


4 posted on 06/05/2020 10:00:13 AM PDT by Freedom_Is_Not_Free (What profits a man if he gains the world but loses his soul?)
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To: RightGeek

A bigger problem is that our poor are often morally poor. That is the worst thing.


5 posted on 06/05/2020 10:00:45 AM PDT by Freedom_Is_Not_Free (What profits a man if he gains the world but loses his soul?)
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To: RightGeek

Richest po’ folks in the world. Fattest, too.


6 posted on 06/05/2020 10:11:05 AM PDT by JimRed (TERM LIMITS, NOW! Build the Wall Faster! TRUTH is the new HATE SPEECH.)
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To: Freedom_Is_Not_Free
It always sucks to look around at everybody else and know you are among those in the worst shape.

So they sit around and bitch about it, waiting for gub'mint to make it better. Ain't happening.

7 posted on 06/05/2020 10:13:10 AM PDT by JimRed (TERM LIMITS, NOW! Build the Wall Faster! TRUTH is the new HATE SPEECH.)
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To: RightGeek

25 trillion in the hole isn’t ‘richest’.


8 posted on 06/05/2020 10:25:45 AM PDT by SpaceBar
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To: Freedom_Is_Not_Free

Right...material ease, but mental squalor.

It’s like knowing how to read but not knowing what’s worth reading.

I used to work in a factory. Most of the people there had way more years than I did. When we got the layoff they were all whinning about, “How am I gonna make it?” Their priorities were crap!

In the meantime, they had not saved anything but bought vans, boats, homes beyond their means, always the newest car and of course a truck too, vacationed at Disneyland EVERY year, etc. So, yes, they were gonna be on the spot.


9 posted on 06/05/2020 10:36:07 AM PDT by SMARTY ("Nobility is defined by the demands it makes on us - by obligations, not by rights".)
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To: RightGeek

It’s a constant talking point of the democrats that we need to raise taxes to help the poor. In order to take a shot at Christians they like to point to Jesus preaching about helping the poor, despite most democrats being atheists. I’m pretty sure that Jesus wasn’t referring to buying a third 60” flat screen though.

I’m in India often for work and see the truly poor. Excepting the mentally ill that live on a park bench and won’t accept help, we don’t have any truly poor in America. The welfare state is so extensive in the U.S. that as long as you apply for it you will never be really poor.

What we have in the U.S. is a huge amount of class envy which is exploit by democrats for political purposes. People see others with more than them and demand politicians fix it. Wanting someone else’s lifestyle doesn’t make you poor though.


10 posted on 06/05/2020 10:46:24 AM PDT by GaryCrow
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To: GaryCrow

I’m in India often for work and see the truly poor. Excepting the mentally ill that live on a park bench and won’t accept help, we don’t have any truly poor in America. The welfare state is so extensive in the U.S. that as long as you apply for it you will never be really poor.

What we have in the U.S. is a huge amount of class envy which is exploit by democrats for political purposes. People see others with more than them and demand politicians fix it. Wanting someone else’s lifestyle doesn’t make you poor though.


So true. Go the Middle East and one of the tours there features the City of the Living Dead. People living in graveyards in the Family Mausoleum....

Travel to Africa and see people living in houses made out of mud and sticks...

Our poverty is luxury to them...


11 posted on 06/05/2020 10:49:37 AM PDT by patriotspride
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To: RightGeek
Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning.
IOW, they’re better off than my parents were.

That “systemic racism" stuff is brutal, I tell you . . .


12 posted on 06/05/2020 3:01:37 PM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (Socialism is cynicism directed towards society and - correspondingly - naivete towards government.)
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