Poverty is a lie in US.
I believe poverty is big lie at least in US. Here someone considered poorest of poor can get at least food stamps, various govt supported programs.
2. Largest military , defense , city and town police departments ( compare this to India who have large human police deficiency )
3. If there is poverty who owns skyrocketing buildings in every major city. Even towns have high polished houses.
4. Poverty is myth because family-forking ( sorry can't find better word) happens at very early age in life. In US, life expectancy is 80+. Consider someone living 80 years and leaving parents house at 20 , claiming homeless and poor. In reality he/she is not poor. They still inherit what their parents have. This is not fundamental reason but important to consider. You can't expect to own a house ( $200K ) at age of 21.
People live far far comfortably in US and always whine about something in US. What is your take on this ?
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[ 0.16 ms ] story [ 33.1 ms ] threadYou seem to be looking at averages. "Who owns skyrocketing buildings" very, very few people own those buildings. They get rented out to the people and businesses inside them. It's rare for a business to own its own skyscraper, and it's even more rare for a person to own the skyscraper they live in. Having a few rich people in a city who own a bunch of buildings doesn't mean no one is poor in the city.
People don't start out owning houses, but they start out renting and maybe move up to a house later. Usually they use a mortgage (loan) that takes 15 or 30 years to pay back. And again, not everyone can afford rent or a mortgage payments. Some people really are poor.
It's getting harder to inherit money. Mainly because of taxes, and a general feeling that someone should earn their wealth instead of inheriting it.
(I realize this doesn't really match the situation that the OP was driving at)
> One in four Americans between 18 and 59 years of age expect to receive an inheritance sometime during their lives. ... The median projected inheritance was between $50,000 and $100,000
This means that most Americans won't be getting any inheritance, taxes or not.
(I don't expect it is particularly wrong, but it isn't a very strong number. Apparently a larger percentage of those over 60 think they will have money to pass on http://www.interest.com/retirement-planning/advice/interest-... )
BTW, that link you referenced says "money, property, or valuable possessions" and not just money. That might include, for example, one's wedding ring.
(Which then goes into the next chart. 11% of those who expect to leave an inheritance expect to leave less than $10K.)
Thinking about it, both of my parents are over 60 so would be on the survey. If one dies, then the other still keeps the house, belongings, etc. Does that count as "leaving an inheritance" to the spouse, in that survey?
If not, then it's only when both die that the money gets passed down. I have one sister. So if they combined leave $10K then that's an average inheritance of 5K.
The charts don't show that skew between joint estates and inheritance to a single person, but then again it would be influenced by the number of divorced people over 60, the number of remarried people, the number of widow(er)s over 60, and the number of children per household.
Please?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty
Focusing on just the food issue, people who are 'food secure' have enough food for an active, healthy life. Food insecurity is another indicator of poverty. About 10-15% of Americans are food insecure some time during the year.
A third definition of poverty, more common in the EU, is measured as a percentage of the median income, usually 40-70%. HPI-2, used for high-income OECD countries, uses "population below income poverty line (50% of median adjusted household disposable income)." Under that definition, 17.0% of the people in the US are poor.
What you are saying is that none of these definitions are correct, or even relevant.
I strongly disagree, and propose that you have little idea of what you're talking about.
Your #1 assumes that SNAP (what used to be called food stamps) is enough to bring people out of poverty and food insecurity. This is incorrect. SNAP averages less than $1.40 per person per meal in 2014. While it's possible to survive at this level, it is difficult. See http://www.jneb.org/webfiles/images/journals/jneb/45_6_Leung... for one study ("Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program participation was not associated with improved household food security over 3 months (P=.25)")
Your #2 highlights part of the issue. We spend money on military, law enforcement, and prisons, and not on social services. That we spend the money doesn't mean poverty is a lie - it can also mean that we don't care as much about poor people.
Your #3 is also beside the point. This is an aspect of income inequality. Rockefeller, Ford, and Mellon were rich even during the Great Depression. The Empire State Building was built during the Depression. That doesn't mean that the Hoovervilles of that era were a lie. The Gini coefficient is a rough measure of income inequality, and it's higher now than it's ever been.
Your #4 has some merit. To start with, life expectancy in the US is 79.8, not 80+. Only 1/4 of Americans will get an inheritance, and the median inheritance for that 25% is $60K or so. Your logic doesn't apply to the other 75%, which is quite the majority. (I won't be getting any inheritance from my parents - they don't have the money.)
But it's true - if we changed our culture drastically, then fewer people would be food insecure or housing insecure. Accounts of life 100 years ago have families of 5 in a one bedroom place, and may include relatives. Zoning laws often prevent mother-in-law apartments/granny flats, or guest cottages, and prevent multiple families from sharing the same home.
Still, the fact that culture could change doesn't mean that no one is currently poor, which is your thesis.
Your observations instead point out that we could reduce poverty if we are willing to tax the rich, reduce military spending, shift police/prison money over to social services, and change zoning laws to support denser living.
Which are the same points everyone's talked about since the War on Poverty began in the 1960s, or since the social reforms around the Great Depression, or the socialist movement starting in the 1800s.
What we do about that, what we fail to do, and what we should or shouldn't do are separate questions, but you can't simply wave off poverty with "it's their own fault because they're not falling back on familial support".