3 ms·

Table 3 and division. And I presume you're in the US, but from an external observer's perspective, 'poverty' in the US is extreme and is almost incomprehensibl

Table 3 and division. And I presume you're in the US, but from an external observer's perspective, 'poverty' in the US is extreme and is almost incomprehensible... I spend about half my time in the US, half in India. So as a semi-external observer, all I can do is laugh at you. Most middle class people would love to live as well as the American poor do. Actually so would many Europeans - Bulgarian GDP/capita is about 1/2 of what the average poor American consumes. No matter how much you might scoff and sputter, most poor American adults chose not look for work even once in the past year. That's just the basic fact of the matter.

anjc 10y ago
I can't see what you mean in the Table. I can only see 30% of people who had no work experience in the year in question. I presume that you aren't adding up both years. And I presume that you also noticed that ~15% have a disability. Yeah I'm sure middle class people in India would love to live "as well" as the American poor do. I was talking about the firmly developed world. Bulgaria is the poorest country in the EU and they still have access to free and competent healthcare. Compare that the US where the poor people considered by that table sometimes die because of bad teeth and no immediate access to care.
- mcguire 10y ago
  Take the number of poor between 18 and 64, divide by the number of poor between 18 and 64 who did not work, and you get 61.7% Of course, the question of whether they "choose" not to work, "choose" to be poor, or if they are "lazy" are judgements not supported by the numbers. (More worrying is the 40% of the poor who did work.)
  - anjc 10y ago
    Oh yeah I see now, thanks. I was misinterpreting the first column. Obviously it's impossible to glean motivations from a table, but it's telling to me that among the general population the majority of workers work full time, whereas among the poor it's the opposite, with most working part time for the entire year. These people would probably be called the 'working poor' in my country; they're trying to work, but unfavourable economic and employment conditions make it difficult to maintain stable/consistent/quality employment. But in comparison to other developed countries, the proportion of workers (in that table) for a poor demographic is relatively high. Which would also signal to me that not only is the demographic not choosing NOT to work, but that they're choosing to work in higher numbers than in other countries despite their poverty (or maybe because of it). https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/74/Pov_crossnatl.jpeg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/74/Pov_crossnatl... I still maintain that people don't choose not to work en-masse for extended periods, evidenced by the fact that the US has had full employment for many periods.
  - mcguire 10y ago
    ...modulo inverting the result. Math is hard.
mcguire 10y ago
"Table 3 and division." Or, how about page 24: Work Experience In 2014, 6.9 percent of workers aged 18 to 64 were in poverty. The poverty rate for those who worked full time, year round was 3.0 percent, while the poverty rate for those working less than full time, year round was 15.9 percent. None of these rates were statistically different from the 2013 poverty rates (Table 3). Among those who did not work at least 1 week in 2014, the poverty rate and the number in poverty were 33.7 percent and 16.4 million in 2014, not statistically different from the 2013 estimates (Table 3). Those who did not work in 2014 represented 24.7 percent of all people aged 18 to 64, compared with 61.7 percent of people aged 18 to 64 in poverty. ...which is poorly written.

anjc 10y ago

I can't see what you mean in the Table. I can only see 30% of people who had no work experience in the year in question. I presume that you aren't adding up both years. And I presume that you also noticed that ~15% have a disability. Yeah I'm sure middle class people in India would love to live "as well" as the American poor do. I was talking about the firmly developed world. Bulgaria is the poorest country in the EU and they still have access to free and competent healthcare. Compare that the US where the poor people considered by that table sometimes die because of bad teeth and no immediate access to care.

mcguire 10y ago
Take the number of poor between 18 and 64, divide by the number of poor between 18 and 64 who did not work, and you get 61.7% Of course, the question of whether they "choose" not to work, "choose" to be poor, or if they are "lazy" are judgements not supported by the numbers. (More worrying is the 40% of the poor who did work.)
- anjc 10y ago
  Oh yeah I see now, thanks. I was misinterpreting the first column. Obviously it's impossible to glean motivations from a table, but it's telling to me that among the general population the majority of workers work full time, whereas among the poor it's the opposite, with most working part time for the entire year. These people would probably be called the 'working poor' in my country; they're trying to work, but unfavourable economic and employment conditions make it difficult to maintain stable/consistent/quality employment. But in comparison to other developed countries, the proportion of workers (in that table) for a poor demographic is relatively high. Which would also signal to me that not only is the demographic not choosing NOT to work, but that they're choosing to work in higher numbers than in other countries despite their poverty (or maybe because of it). https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/74/Pov_crossnatl.jpeg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/74/Pov_crossnatl... I still maintain that people don't choose not to work en-masse for extended periods, evidenced by the fact that the US has had full employment for many periods.
- mcguire 10y ago
  ...modulo inverting the result. Math is hard.

mcguire 10y ago

"Table 3 and division." Or, how about page 24: Work Experience In 2014, 6.9 percent of workers aged 18 to 64 were in poverty. The poverty rate for those who worked full time, year round was 3.0 percent, while the poverty rate for those working less than full time, year round was 15.9 percent. None of these rates were statistically different from the 2013 poverty rates (Table 3). Among those who did not work at least 1 week in 2014, the poverty rate and the number in poverty were 33.7 percent and 16.4 million in 2014, not statistically different from the 2013 estimates (Table 3). Those who did not work in 2014 represented 24.7 percent of all people aged 18 to 64, compared with 61.7 percent of people aged 18 to 64 in poverty. ...which is poorly written.