JohnTommasi.com: The Economics of Unintended Consequences & Common Sense
  • Home
  • Murder Outside the Back Door
  • Murder at the Front Door
  • Danger Zone
  • About/Contact
  • Blog
  • Stock Pick of the week
  • FED Speak

Poverty in the United States

11/30/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
    ​One of the interesting facets of teaching at Bentley was that 11% of the student population were foreign nationals, and a number of these came from countries that tended to be very socialistic.  I would ask them how to describe the socioeconomic status of a family that owned a house, a car or truck or 2, cable or satellite TV, a computer, video game system, and rarely to never went hungry.  To a person , they all said middle to upper middle class.  However, if you look at the statistics below from the 2009 US government census (the last year we have these stat’s), they are in Poverty in the US.
First: US Poverty Guidelines:
•    The 2015 Poverty Guidelines for the
48 Contiguous States 
•    2007 Median Household Income $50, 233    2010 $49,777
–    Persons in family        Poverty guideline
•    1                           $11,670
•    2                15,730
•    3                19,790
•    4                23,850
•    5                27,910
•    6                31,970
•    7                36,030
•    8                40,090

Picture
​ However, like minimum wage, this one size fits all Federal Government mentality doesn't work.  As you can see from the above chart, the cost of living differs greatly throughout the US., and where you may be in poverty living in New York, you may not be in poverty living along the Mexican border, on a reservation in Arizona or in the Mountains of Appalachia.  Consider the following:


According to the 2009 Census, the following statistics are from those defined to be in poverty in the US (compiled by the Heritage Foundation):
•    42 percent of poor households actually owning their own homes
•    80 percent of poor households have air conditioning 
•    75% have a car or truck, and 31 percent have two or more cars or trucks 
•    65% have cable or satellite television 
•    66% have at least one DVD player and 70 percent have a VCR 
•    50% have a personal computer, and one in seven have two or more computers 
•    More than half of poor families with children have a video game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation 
•    43 % have Internet access 
•    33% have a wide-screen plasma or LCD television 
•    25% have a digital video recorder system, such as a TiVo 
•    96 percent of poor parents stated that their children were never hungry at any time during the year because they could not afford food
•    83 percent of poor families reported having enough food to eat, and over the course of a year, only 4 percent of poor persons become temporarily homeless

Clearly, Poverty in the United States differs greatly from poverty in the rest of the world.  But there's more.  Are people in poverty starving.  If you look at the attached chart, you will see that area's of poverty correlate to areas of low cost of living, and if you look at the chart below:

PictureObesity by Income Quintile
  you can see that people in the lowest income quintile are clearly not starving.  Their nutrition is clearly not the best.  There are a number of reasons including cheap, junk food has more calories then high protein expensive food.  But they are certainly not as bad off as Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton would have you think.

0 Comments

    Author

    John Tommasi is a retired Senior Lecturer of Economics & Finance from Bentley University and  the University of New Hampshire.

    Archives

    February 2023
    January 2023
    May 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    October 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photo used under Creative Commons from simone.brunozzi