<p>No… </p>
<p>It is more like this…</p>
<p>Low income plus inadequate social programs = poverty. </p>
<p>Most people here on CC send their kids to private school? That is news to me.</p>
<p>I think there is an amount of income beyond which people are comfortable. I have seen it quoted in the press but can’t quote. I seem to recall somewhere around $200-250k for two earners is enough to make most people say they are quite comfortable. I think that is the dividing line. Perhaps not enough in NYC or SF Bay Area, but many other places, that is a comfortable income.</p>
<p>vlad, how do you know the level of income for poverty would not be adjusted for free housing?</p>
<p><a href=“https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/about/overview/measure.html”>https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/about/overview/measure.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“2014 Poverty Guidelines | ASPE”>http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/14poverty.cfm</a></p>
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<p>Or low income + literally everything free for all except for food which remains at the same price = still poverty.
Or any income + food free but everything else increases in price 100-fold = no poverty. </p>
<p>Because that’s how poverty is measured. </p>
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<p>Read the link you posted. </p>
<p>The definition of “the rich” as households having $1MM or more, I find ridiculous. I would say that’s upper middle class, maybe rich in some parts of the US, but definitely not in any of the major cities. Nor in many of the medium-sized ones! Maybe around $5MM, we can begin to talk about rich.</p>
<p>It also, as some have said, has to do with things beyond money. Education, leisure activities, vacation spots, and so on. I always found my family interesting, where my father was the breadwinner who put our income into the upper-middle class bracket while my mother made little money. But he had been a first gen college student at a no-name school in a part of the country many would consider backwards. His family had even been nearly food insecure at times. Meanwhile my mother is Ivy League educated, and her parents had bachelors and masters from well-known and even prestigious schools in a major city. Her great-grandmother, even, had been to college. Both my mother and father grew up in cities a few hours’ drive from the ocean, but my father had never been until he was adult while my mother went nearly every summer weekend, beginning in early childhood. What was impossible for him was a given for her.</p>
<p>"For instance, say the government gave everyone free housing, not the money for housing, just the housing itself. Poverty level would be unchanged.</p>
<p>Alternatively the government could eliminate poverty completely by making “minimal diet” food free for all. Thus someone who makes $0 a year would officially be infinitely higher than the federal poverty level."</p>
<p>So social expenditures do make a difference.</p>
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<p>Well, only those which directly affect the shelf price of food. Nothing else will change poverty. I guess the 2nd point is useless for trying to prove my point, but the first holds. If the government subsidized housing for all 100% the poverty rate would be completely unchanged. </p>
<p>180k income is not rich</p>
<p>I’ve always wanted to see tax rates as a percentage of gross, unadjusted income, rather than as a percentage of adjusted taxable income. Any one know what those rates are?</p>
<p>When the more powerful have a major impact on writing the tax codes, the tax rate can become meaningless since they can set the base against which the rate is assessed. </p>
<p>Hayden, I can tell you mine is 30.1% for the year so far as of my last pay check. To be vague and humorous, a middle class income. </p>
<p>"“The United States stands out as the country with the highest poverty rate and one of the lowest levels of social expenditure”</p>
<p>That is what I’m arguing is BS. I really don’t believe anybody on this thread, no matter how they mince words, believes this.</p>
<p>“The government could …” is a false premise, imo. If governments could eliminate poverty we would have seen an example in history by now. </p>
<p>My daughter says she has a much better understanding of what “rich” means after her two years in the Peace Corps. The average annual salary in her village was under $3000. Still, the people didn’t feel poor. And neither did. Y kid who loved there for two years with the same income. </p>
<p>It made her much more appreciative of what she had here…and what she needed and didn’t need. </p>
<p>She says it’s really unfortunate that everyone can’t have the experience of living in a country with far less resources than ours has.</p>
<p>This is not to diminish the needs of the many people in our country who cannot make ends meet. </p>
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Doesn’t this argument hold true for private industry as well?</p>
<p>The elimination of poverty has (IMO) been hampered almost entirely by one simple fact: the people with the political power to really change this aren’t poor, and have a lot of priorities (regardless of rhetoric) that they place ahead of ending poverty. So the fact that government has not eliminated poverty does not to me mean that it therefore can not do so.</p>
<p>You might very well be right, cosmicfish. I believe that no matter what they say, whatever rhetoric they use to get elected, all they care about is power and money. That’s it. Some might start out with lofty goals of making things better for people, but very soon they change to be like everyone else, in it for the votes and the money. All of them.</p>
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<p>The government could eliminate poverty by setting the threshold for what we call poverty to meaning an income of less than $0. Would just make the distinction of poverty meaningless. </p>
<p>^^Hey, it’s kind of like the deportation numbers. Just change the meaning of “deportation” to include everyone you turn away at the border, and before you know it—record deportations.</p>
<p>thumper, my D had a similar, although apparently lesser revelation, doing Americorp. Just finished an assignment in SLC, Utah, and started another in SF. What a culture shift. Americorp sets the stipend at the poverty level, only “you” don’t have any kids. Maybe there are lots of ways of being at the bottom. </p>
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<p>Yep. Guess that’s why it’s silly to talk changing deportation numbers, just like it’s silly to talk about poverty numbers. And especially silly to talk about how better safety nets will change poverty. </p>
<h1>153 Yup. Basically everyone looks out for themselves first. It’s human nature. Imo the best we can do is abide by the system of rights whereby we do not harm others while we look out for ourselves. This creates abundance which leads to surpluses that can be used as safety nets for the poor.</h1>
<p>But believing that this or that authority can take care of everyone’s needs leads to said authority simply taking all for itself and leaving everyone needy.</p>