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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Senate Income Inequality in the U.S.: Causes, Effects, Solutions

Discussion in 'Community' started by Jedi Merkurian , Mar 17, 2011.

  1. Jabbadabbado

    Jabbadabbado Manager Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 19, 1999
    The bigger the gap between rich and poor, the more dysfunctional our society becomes. It's really that simple. We are slowly choking to death on the dysfunction caused by thirty plus years of Reaganomics.
     
  2. Jedi Merkurian

    Jedi Merkurian Future Films Rumor Naysayer star 7 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    May 25, 2000
    Speaking of dysfunction, the relationship between lower-to-middle income folks and the GOP they continue to vote for strikes me as being comparable to an abusive spouse. Remember my opening post mentioned a sneering disdain for the educated? Well, it extends to the poor as well, because apparently Americans who flout such luxuries as a refrigerator or air conditioning are parasites on society.
     
  3. Jedi Merkurian

    Jedi Merkurian Future Films Rumor Naysayer star 7 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    May 25, 2000
    I?m trying real hard not to go on a rant, but it?s been very difficult lately. We have a recent report showing a record level of Americans below the poverty line, we have the above-mentioned scorn and disdain for those selfsame poor, and we have people cheering at the notion of someone dying because of lack of medical insurance.

    Not only are there more poor in the U.S., but here?s an article about just how expensive it is to be poor as well. I?ll add the caveat on this article (and the author does as well) that some of those costs are self-inflicted. Even so, the average lower-income individual pays a considerable amount of ?poor taxes.?

    What the [censored], America!
     
  4. Jabbadabbado

    Jabbadabbado Manager Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 19, 1999
    Real median household income peaked in the 90s and has declined ever since.

    The poverty level bottomed out around 11% in 2000 and has been on the rise ever since.

    Only the richest Americans are sprinting ahead of everyone else at an ever-increasing rate.

    What's to rant about? 30 years of Republican bullying to dictate the terms of American discourse on taxes and the economy have led to this. And the only reforms that are being proposed will only finish off the American middle class for good. Who do we blame though. We let the Reagan revolution and the Greenspan monetary system destroy our society so thoroughly that now most Americans willingly buy into the idea that the sole mission of the Federal Reserve is to buoy up the value of equity markets.

     
  5. Kimball_Kinnison

    Kimball_Kinnison Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 28, 2001
    A lot depends on how you define what is or is not "poor".

    When a lot of people hear about "the poor", they envision starving kids, or the homeless, or some other Dickinsonian idea of the poor. However, the official poverty line covers a lot more than that.

    For example, the typical poor family has all of the modern kitchen appliances (including a microwave and/or dishwasher), Cable TV (hooked up to more than one TV), at least one cell phone. About a third of them have a game system. Just under half own a personal computer.

    Many of these things aren't necessities, but luxuries. Necessities are things like food, clothing, or shelter. In poor households with children, only 4% reported even one instance in the previous year of being hungry and lacking the financial resources to buy food. 67% of poor households report that they are able to afford "Enough food of the kinds we want". Another 25% report that they can afford enough food, even if they don't always care for what types it is. Only 13% of those identified as poor avoided going to the doctor for lack of the ability to pay. The vast majority of the "poor" have shelter (only about 240,000 are permanently homeless and literally living on the street).

    I'm not citing these statistics to say that poverty isn't a problem, but to show that the raw numbers in that report lack context for what they describe as poverty. The real problem isn't that there are 46 million people with incomes below an arbitrary line set by bureaucrats. It's the bottom portion of those 46 million, who really do lack the necessities of life. Those are the people who need to be targeted in any anti-poverty measures, but you can't focus on them if you distract everyone with the inflated numbers.

    I will admit, that I often get irritated by some of the panhandlers near my office. Many of them have strongly suggested to me through their actions that they really are unwilling to work, and aren't grateful for help when it's offered (other than cash). For example, in the 5+ years I've worked there, there has been a woman who sits on a milk crate near the Metro station, always with a sign telling a sob story ("2 kids, no heat", or "2 kids need school supplies"). She has sat there on a daily basis for 5 years, almost without fail. I've watched her criticize people (including me) when they offered her food, or school supplies, or other goods as they were walking by, because she's specifically looking for money instead. She appears more than capable of doing a variety of physical labor, and I refuse to believe that in more than 5 years she's been completely unable to find any sort of employment, even at minimum wage.

    There's another group of people who hang out on the sidewalk next to my office. They are always smoking cigarettes, and are often drunk (I've seen several of them come out of the local ABC store on my way to/from the Metro). And yet, they keep asking for money from everyone who passes by.

    I'm more than willing to donate both my time and money to help people, but I don't think it's asking too much to expect them to be doing their part as well. Now, as a general rule, I don't give anything to panhandlers. Instead, I focus my charity efforts to helping organizations that help the needy, and who help meet those necessities of life, rather than just blindly offering individuals cash that they then squander or abuse.

    If we want to help the poor, then we need to make sure that the help we are giving will actually help them meet the necessities of life,
     
  6. Fire_Ice_Death

    Fire_Ice_Death Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Feb 15, 2001
    Really KK, you're buying into Foxnews' crap line about the 'poor'?
     
  7. GrandAdmiralPelleaon

    GrandAdmiralPelleaon Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 28, 2000
    I must admit, I enjoyed the fact that the rebuttal was referenced before the actual report. Although I must admit I found Colbert's tackling of the report far sharper than Stewart's.

    I do enjoy the blatant doublespeak coming from certain quarters. You don't talk about the rich, but reference job creators & whatnot while simultaneously trying to prove that the rich aren't that rich, and make sure that the poor are now the "poor".

    Try to keep up people, 250.000 a year isn't rich, but being qualified poor is just an arbitrary bureaucratic line. Yea, baby.
     
  8. Kimball_Kinnison

    Kimball_Kinnison Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 28, 2001
    Considering I can't stand Fox News and limit myself to watching them in bursts of a few seconds while flipping channels, not to mention I heard the Heritage Foundation's report referenced on several local radio stations (including WTOP, which is far from being some conservative mouthpiece), do you have anything more than an ad hominem to throw out?

    The Heritage Foundation's report covered data available through the end of 2009 (and was release on July 19, 2011), while the latest Census report covered through 2010. Do you really think that the numbers changed significantly from 2009 to 2010? If so, where is your data to prove it?

    There is a difference between being poor and being deprived. The government's job is to protect its citizens, not necessarily make them comfortable. As such, I agree that welfare programs are important to help provide the necessities of life, but I have a fundamental issue with the government going beyond that. It's not the government's job to make sure that you can have an Xbox, 2 TVs, and Cable TV. Those are all, luxuries, not necessities. If you can't afford food to the point that you need welfare assistance, then why are you spending $50-100 a month on Cable TV? That money could buy quite a bit of food staples (such as beans, rice, flour, etc) that you can use to make sure your basic needs are met.

    If 9% of the 46 million people living in "poverty" (according to the Census report) are the ones actually going hungry in some way, then they should be the actual focus of government assistance, not the people with multiple TVs and Cable subscriptions. Similarly, if there are 650000 people who are permanently homeless, then they should be the first priority in assistance, rather than people who were only temporarily homeless (i.e. a transitional state while moving between two different homes).

    I'm not even saying that once the basic needs of life are met the government should let people go hang. I'm simply saying that the different groups need different assistance. In general, "the poor" aren't going hungry, or homeless, and so they need different help compared to someone who is hungry or homeless. Instead, they need assistance in learning or improving skills to help them find better employment. That same assistance would also be of great help to people who are just above the bureaucratically-drawn income line that defines people as officially "poor".

    All I am saying is that it doesn't help to frame the debate in terms of the larger number of poor, and then talking about them all as though they are the ones in the worst shape. There might be 46 million below the poverty line, but there are only about 690000 that report that they often don't have enough food (1.5% according to the Heritage Foundation report). Another 2.7 million (5.9%) report that they sometimes lack enough food. Those 3.5 million people need different assistance than the other 42 million.

    Kimball Kinnison

    But when you just lump them all
     
  9. Lord_Hydronium

    Lord_Hydronium Manager Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jun 11, 2002
    A microwave? A dishwasher? Wow, living in the lap of luxury there!
     
  10. Fire_Ice_Death

    Fire_Ice_Death Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Feb 15, 2001
    My entiments exactly. I wonder if after paying their bills they can join a country club since they have to work less in their home thanks to that dishwasher and microwave.
     
  11. PRENNTACULAR

    PRENNTACULAR VIP star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Dec 21, 2005
    Kimball, I don't understand what you are arguing. Are you suggesting that the government should stop helping people once they get dishwashers or cable T.V.? Or are you suggesting that we should lower the poverty line, and only provide assistance to those below the new line? Are you suggesting that when people get a T.V. they become magically not poor any more?

    What are you arguing for?
     
  12. Jabbadabbado

    Jabbadabbado Manager Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 19, 1999
    This is how publications like National Review have been characterizing the poor for decades - people sitting on their asses, watching color tv and eating a Big Mac and super sized fries. It's nothing new. But it's such an interesting perspective about poverty --and wealth, actually, since it seems to define wealth as no more than the sum of access to certain goods--.

    This perverse way of looking at poverty and wealth ignores other factors like ability to save, and in particular save for retirement, likelihood of being victimized by a crime in one's own neighborhood, access to decent, violence and crime free public schools for their children. 41.8 million Americans are on Federal food aid, and that's supplemented by private food banks, likely the only reason more Americans don't face food insecurity. Even in the Heritage Foundation report they acknowledge that hunger is a pressing issue for 7.5% of poor households.

    The federal guidelines put the poverty level for a family of four at $22,000. We have 15% of Americans living at something like this comparable level ($11k income for a single person). They aren't homeless in part because they're getting government housing assistance, they're not facing food insecurity in part because of food stamps. The reason poor people have refrigerators is that they're renting partly furnished apartments where fridges are built into the cost of rent. So a lot of people have refrigerators, and the roof supplied over them, only because of government assistance.

    My cleaning lady only has a refrigerator because I gave her my old one. She has a second freezer not because she's living in the lap of luxury, but because she absolutely has to have it to manage food storage to keep down her food costs. This is what my grandparents used to do too. They would not have been able to feed themselves if it weren't for gardening, canning and freezing.
     
  13. PRENNTACULAR

    PRENNTACULAR VIP star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Dec 21, 2005
    Not to mention, many things are more expensive when you are poor (concerning money and time).

    I live in South Central L.A., and there is literally no grocery store within a 5 mile radius of my apportionment. I have checked. That may not seem like a big deal to somebody with a car, but for the majority of the people in my neighborhood who have no cars, the options when it comes to grocery shopping are either walk 10 miles, take public transportation (spend like 4 dollars for round trip, and take about 1 hr. out of your day just for transporting yourself there and home), or go to a corner market, where everything is marked up significantly. Another example would be school. Many of the children I know either get bussed to schools out of the neighborhood (leaving around 4:30 or 5 every morning and getting home around 5 or 6 at night), so they can have some kind of decent opportunity.

    It is very hard to live cost-effectively or efficiently while living under the poverty line. Sometimes "saving money" or "making responsible choices" are not options.
     
  14. PRENNTACULAR

    PRENNTACULAR VIP star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Dec 21, 2005
    Not to mention, many things are more expensive when you are poor (concerning money and time).

    I live in South Central L.A., and there is literally no grocery store within a 5 mile radius of my apportionment. I have checked. That may not seem like a big deal to somebody with a car, but for the majority of the people in my neighborhood who have no cars, the options when it comes to grocery shopping are either walk 10 miles, take public transportation (spend like 4 dollars for round trip, and take about 1 hr. out of your day just for transporting yourself there and home), or go to a corner market, where everything is marked up significantly. Another example would be school. Many of the children I know either get bussed to schools out of the neighborhood (leaving around 4:30 or 5 every morning and getting home around 5 or 6 at night), so they can have some kind of decent opportunity.

    It is very hard to live cost-effectively or efficiently while living under the poverty line. Sometimes "saving money" or "making responsible choices" are not viable options.
     
  15. Kimball_Kinnison

    Kimball_Kinnison Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 28, 2001
    I am specifically not saying any of that.

    What I am saying is that there is a serious perception gap between what the government defines as the poverty line and what people think of as real poverty, and that perception gap translates into ineffective policy.

    When you talk about poverty, most people envision someone who doesn't have enough money to buy food, or who has no place to live because they can't afford rent. As such, when the Census claims that there are 46 million people living in "poverty", that's not what they are claiming, but that's how most people still read it.

    Go back and read what I said again:
    Note the parts that I color coded. All I said is that the people in true poverty (i.e., what most people perceive as poverty - homeless and/or hungry) need different assistance than the rest of the "poor".

    However, I will say that I do think that if someone can afford luxuries like a Cable TV subscription, then they shouldn't be receiving financial assistance from the government.* If you can't afford food or rent to the point that you need the government to help you out, you shouldn't be spending your money on Cable TV. Your first focus should be on providing the necessities of live for you and your family without relying on anyone else. Once that is achieved is the time to start looking at being able to afford luxuries.

    It's one thing for the government to help out someone who doesn't have the means to support their family's needs. It's another thing entirely for the government to help out someone who has the means, but chooses to misuse it. They need to be doing everything they can on their own before the government should be expected to help them out by making up the difference.

    Kimball Kinnison

    * Note I said financial assistance. I wouldn't have a problem with someone receiving something like job training at government expense in that sort of situation.
     
  16. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    Your post seems to turn on the notion that these are easily substitutable. That, if only families did not have a cable TV subscription, many would be able to purchase otherwise unaffordable housing or food? A cable package runs about $20-40 a month. Even in the some of the cheapest locales in the country, a single bedroom apartment will regularly cost as much as 10x that much. So what exactly does your Draconian prohibition on leisure spending accomplish? It certainly doesn't improve the financial standing of the parties in question by any significant measure.

    Contrary to your denial, it does seem that pretty much as Jabbadabbado suggested, you are just flippantly equating "having the means" with access to certain random goods. Can you clarify your approach here?
     
  17. anidanami124

    anidanami124 Jedi Master star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 24, 2002
    What package are those people getting? Because if it's the lowset end you have a point. But if it is not the loswet package I'm calling that one as a PPOR.

    Most cable companies for all those 100+ netwroks you want to watch will be having you pay more then what you should be. Go take a look at comcast the prices just keeps going up and up and up. So again unless you have the low end package most are not 20 to 40 a month. I mean you want the NFL network, DVR, and on demand that will add up even with just one cable box.
     
  18. PRENNTACULAR

    PRENNTACULAR VIP star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Dec 21, 2005
    So you're just going to assume that all these mythical poor people who sit on their butts and watch cable tv today and eat food out of their refrigerators have NFL Network and DVR?

    If I'm going to assume anything about these people I don't know, I would assume that if they are struggling to pay their rent and buy food, they are probably going to go for the cheapest cable package they can find. That makes sense to me. That said, maybe we should assume we know what kind of cable packages poor people tend to get.
     
  19. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    To review

    Pointing out that owning a refrigerator doesn't mitigate all the other effects of poverty=Making too many unjustified assumptions about poverty

    Imaging that a cable TV package must come with premium channels, DVRs, and specialty sports networks=Perfectly reasonable assumption for an evidence-based discussion

    Glad we got that cleared up. Wouldn't want to keep propagating all these "out of context" views about what we're discussing, right? Lol.
     
  20. anidanami124

    anidanami124 Jedi Master star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 24, 2002
    I'm going to assume that if you have cable you are really not as poor as you make you're self out to be and if you really need more money well cutting out the luxurie of cable TV to buy more food becasue saving that if you want to go with $20-$40 dollars a month really helps. Not having that Sirius XM radio to pay for really helps it's a luxurie. Getting a cell phone that costs at best maybe $9 really helps and so on. If you really think that people need cable TV, Satellite, the top of the line cell phones and what ever other luxurie item you can think of to level then that's there problem.

    The money you can save from not having those until you get back on you're feet really really help. It's called not spending money you don't have. What is more importent you're house and food or the cable TV. What worse going with out watching that show you really like or not having a home.

    I mean really there are people that really are poor as in they don't even have a home. To them those so called poor people with the cable TV and HDTV are living like kings. Why not let those homeless people live in those peoples homes and they can live out in the streets. Maybe then they can see that it could be a lot wrose then living with out cable TV. [face_plain]

    And that really is more or less what people like me and KK are pointing out. You will not die if you don't have a TV.

    Heck it's one reason I like to get away ever year. I can live with out my TV, computer, etc for one week and still get by. :eek:

    I read a book or a comic book and I find out that life has so more more to offer.

    Or just cut it out of the bills you owe because you don't really need to live. :eek: I mean really that's 40 more dollars to put towards the food and the house.
     
  21. Fire_Ice_Death

    Fire_Ice_Death Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Feb 15, 2001
    Ani, my brother used to do tech support and billig for a cable company--some of the customers had a cable bill that was $15.00 a month.
     
  22. PRENNTACULAR

    PRENNTACULAR VIP star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Dec 21, 2005
    Okay, a couple things. First of all, it strikes me as funny that you assume that having a cable TV automatically means living like a king. In my experience, this is not the case. For example, a home I was in yesterday. They had a TV with very basic cable. That TV sat on a stand that was falling apart. Across from it sat a couch that I would not pay for, because of the quality. In this house, there were 8 people living in two bedrooms. The Grandmother was living with her daughter and her 3 kids, and also raising 3 of her other grandkids, from a parent who had abandoned them. The family has enough food. They are very frugal (don't waste any food, electricity, etc.), and they are responsible with their money, because there is no room for error. In my experience, most families in poverty are more like this one than the ones that you paint.

    So let's do some math. If this family is paying $50 a month for their cable package (which is almost certainly more than they are actually paying), that means they are paying $600 a year for cable. I am going to guess (although I might be wrong), that this family is not $600 a year away from no longer qualifying for federal welfare programs. So, if they have cable, they are receiving federal assistance. If they don't have cable, they are most likely receiving that same federal assistance. Why not get the cable?

    Yes, because they spend $50 a month of TV, they have to be a little tighter on how they eat, dr
     
  23. Kimball_Kinnison

    Kimball_Kinnison Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 28, 2001
    The government's purpose is to protect the rights of its citizens. It's not supposed o be there to make them comfortable.

    Everyone's first priority should always bee to cover the necessities of life for themselves and their family. If you can't afford to provide food, clothing, shelter, etc for your family, to the point that you have to rely on someone else (government, churches, food banks, etc), then you shouldn't be spending money on non-essentials like Cable TV. Government welfare programs meant to provide the essentials (subsidized housing, food stamps, etc) have limited budgets, and so if you use those programs when you could afford to get your necessities without them, you are in effect stealing from others who would have need of those programs. Alternately, if those programs' budgets are big enough that they can afford to support people who can pay for those services without subsidies (but choose not to), then those budgets should be cut, and the money redirected towards otehr assistance programs that would help lift people out of poverty (such as job training programs).

    As an example, in 2009, there were 35 million people on food stamps (16 million households). If each 63.7% of those households (the percentage the Heritage Foundation report gives as having cable or satellite TV) also had a $50 cable bill (on average) each month, that comes to over $6.1 billion a year. That's $6.1 billion extra that has to be budgeted for food stamps that could instead be allocated to job training, or to teaching life skills (like financial planning) to help people lift themselves out of poverty. It's inefficient, it's wasteful, and it doesn't actually help to lift the recipients out of poverty.

    Until you have lifted yourself out of poverty (with or without assistance from the government, charities, or anyone else), all of your resources should be focused on getting out of poverty and providing for your family. Government programs shouldn't have the goal of making the poor comfortable. They should have the goal of helping them to lift themselves out of poverty, so they can make themselves comfortable.

    Kimball Kinnison
     
  24. Vezner

    Vezner Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Dec 29, 2001
    QFT. I wish more people understood this simple truth.
     
  25. GrandAdmiralPelleaon

    GrandAdmiralPelleaon Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 28, 2000
    lol, ideological definition =/= truth. At best you could hope that more people would follow this interpretation. Just because you feel the need to define the debate that way, doesn't mean anybody has to accept your framing.