Robdar, I find your insistence that things are just as bad here as proof that this thread title is correct. The difference between Appalachia (where I grew up BTW) and Calcutta is about 40,000,000 (people that is).
Living in the western "rich" world we are spoiled and don't understand harships! Agree?
by Witness 007 38 Replies latest jw experiences
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Robdar
Robdar, I find your insistence that things are just as bad here as proof that this thread title is correct.
And if what you said made any sense, I would throw the same right back at you.
The difference between Appalachia (where I grew up BTW) and Calcutta is about 40,000,000 (people that is).
Just because there are more people living in poverty in Kolkata does NOT mean there are not deprived people living in poverty here in the U.S.
BTW, I grew up in Appalachian area myself. And I have seen first hand conditions that were so awful they made me cry.
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PSacramento
We have homeless and poor and starving here too, not to the same extent but lets not forget that, in Bolivia, to sue the same original example, there are very wealthy people too whoprobably don't know that people like that lady mention have to do what they do.
The poor are everywhere and will be with us always ( Jesus said so too) and the rich will never "see" them either, no matter how much things change, the more they stay the same.
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sammielee24
on-Poverty Wage Methodology
The non-poverty wage levels in this table are conservative estimates that most likely drastically underestimate true living wages especially in developing countries.
The starting point is the poverty guidelines for a family of three in the United States as determined by the United States Department of Health and Human Services. For 2005, this guideline is $16,090 (http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty). Several cities and states determine United States non-poverty wages as the poverty guideline plus 20% distributed either as health benefits or higher hourly wages. Thus, the per hour non-poverty wage for the United States when the employer does not provide health benefits is $16,090/2,080 x 1.20, or $9.29, where 2,080 is the number of hours worked in a year at 40 hours per week for 52 weeks. The U.S. non-poverty wage when the employer does pay health benefits is $7.74/hour with $1.55/hour as health benefits.
To determine the non-poverty wage in another country that has similar purchasing power in that country as the U.S. non-poverty wage has in the United States, we adjust the U.S. non-poverty wage by the ratio of that country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita to the United States GDP per capita, again following the methodology of cities and states that have adopted sweatfree procurement policies. The GDP per capita figures come from the CIA's World Factbook (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html).
For example, to determine the non-poverty wage for Bangladesh divide Bangladesh's GDP per capita ($2,000) with the U.S. GDP per capita ($40,100), and then multiply this ratio (0.05) by the U.S. non-poverty wage ($9.29 without health benefits). The result is that $.46/hour has roughly the same purchasing power in Bangladesh as $9.29/hour in the United States.
The 46 cents/hour non-poverty wage level in Bangladesh is substantially higher than the legal minimum wage, set in 1994 at 930 takas/month for unskilled workers, roughly equivalent to 8 cents/hour. However, even the 46 cents/hour wage for Bangladesh and other non-poverty wage estimates for other developing countries in this table probably underestimate a true living wage in those countries. The U.S. figure which serves as the benchmark for other calculations is not very generous; $16,090 for a family of three, or even that figure plus 20% is far below U.S. living wages in most regions as determined by living wage studies that take into account geographically specific data on expenditures (food, housing, health care, transportation, child care, etc.). These figures range from around $8/hour for a single person with a child to more than $20/hour for two workers and two children (seehttp://www.epi.org/content.cfm/issueguides_poverty_poverty).
Furthermore, the GDP per capita ratio is not always an accurate reflection of relative economic wellbeing. According to our formula, if the United States generates more millionaires our GDP per capita will increase without necessarily increasing the U.S. poverty guidelines, thus decreasing non-poverty wage levels in countries that do not also increase their GDP per capita ratio. But there is no reason non-poverty wages in other countries should decrease because there are more millionaires in the United States.
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JeffT
Sigh.
Please try to comprehend simple statements. I'm not trying to argue that there is NO poverty in the United States. The question, was do those living in rich western countries not understand living in real poverty. I would contend that for a very large majority the answer to that question is yes. I know a whole lot of supposedly struggling middle class Americans who are trying to keep a stiff upper lip while being forced to drive last year's Lexus. Those people don't understand hardship as a much larger portion of the world's population understand's it. If you want another example go to Walmart and watch people loading wide screen LED TV's into their ten year old beater car. No they don't have much money (and probably don't have their priotities straight) but they aren't experiencing hardship like somebody living in a cardboard box.
IN GENERAL the standard of living is much higher for a much larger proportion of the population in the US, Canada, Western Europe and Japan than it is for the general population in Sub-Saharan Africa, or South Central Asia as examples.
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beksbks
Hey Rob!! Good to see you!
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villabolo
The difference between Appalachia (where I grew up BTW) and Calcutta is about 40,000,000 (people that is).
JeffT, Calcutta has, including the suburbs 15 million inhabitants per Wikipedia. Nevertheless, if the figure of 40 million refers to all of India's poor (which I doubt) it comes out to 4% of its total population of one billion. As a percentage of total population that would come out to the equivalent of 9 million out of 300 million in the United States.
villabolo
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betterdaze
Revised formula puts 1 in 6 Americans in poverty
By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer
Tue Oct 20, 8:41 am ET
WASHINGTON – The level of poverty in America is even worse than first believed.
A revised formula for calculating medical costs and geographic variations show that approximately 47.4 million Americans last year lived in poverty, 7 million more than the government's official figure.
The disparity occurs because of differing formulas the Census Bureau and the National Academy of Science use for calculating the poverty rate. The NAS formula shows the poverty rate to be at 15.8 percent, or nearly 1 in 6 Americans, according to calculations released this week. That's higher than the 13.2 percent, or 39.8 million, figure made available recently under the original government formula.
That measure, created in 1955, does not factor in rising medical care, transportation, child care or geographical variations in living costs. Nor does it consider non-cash government aid when calculating income. As a result, official figures released last month by Census may have overlooked millions of poor people, many of them 65 and older.
According to the revised NAS formula:
_About 18.7 percent of Americans 65 and older, or nearly 7.1 million, are in poverty compared to 9.7 percent, or 3.7 million, under the traditional measure. That's due to out-of-pocket expenses from rising Medicare premiums, deductibles and a coverage gap in the prescription drug benefit.
_About 14.3 percent of people 18 to 64, or 27 million, are in poverty, compared to 11.7 percent under the traditional measure. Many of the additional poor are low-income, working people with transportation and child-care costs.
_Child poverty is lower, at about 17.9 percent, or roughly 13.3 million, compared to 19 percent under the traditional measure. That's because single mothers and their children disproportionately receive non-cash aid such as food stamps.
_Poverty rates were higher for non-Hispanic whites (11 percent), Asians (17 percent) and Hispanics (29 percent) when compared to the traditional measure. For blacks, poverty remained flat at 24.7 percent, due to the cushioning effect of non-cash aid.
_The Northeast and West saw bigger jumps in poverty, due largely to cities with higher costs of living such as New York, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The Census Bureau said it expedited release of the alternative numbers for this month because of the interest expressed by lawmakers and the Obama administration in seeing a fuller range of numbers. Legislation pending in Congress would mandate a switch to the revised formula, although the White House could choose to act on its own.
Arloc Sherman, a senior researcher at the nonprofit Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said that because the revised formula factors in non-cash government aid, the amount of increase in poverty from 2007 to 2008 was generally smaller compared to the current measure.
"Food stamp participation rose during the first year of recession and appears to have softened what could have been an even greater increase in financial hardship," he said.
Sherman said the revised formula could take on greater importance in measuring poverty for 2009 as more Americans take advantage of tax credits and food stamps under the federal stimulus program. Food stamp assistance currently is at an all-time high of about 36 million. -
trueblue
Sometimes I wonder what ever happened to that saying that you are happiest when you are poor.
I wonder if it is because too many of us have had a taste of this obscured good life of riches.
Some times I also wonder if I would be happier living where everyone is loving and poor.
Dear Lord if you will not make me rich then make everyone else poor...
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Lillith26
Yep! problem is that we cant agree who is or who isnt living in poverty enough to need our help- the arguing is why poverty still exists!