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>The US has the second-highest rate of poverty among rich countries (poverty here measured by the percentage of people earning less than half the national media

>The US has the second-highest rate of poverty among rich countries (poverty here measured by the percentage of people earning less than half the national median income That is a preposterous way to compare poverty between countries. By this definition, an American can make more money than a Frenchmen, but the former will be counted as poor and the latter not. And I reckon that we'd fair much better than the EU as a single entity under this standard. Measuring food security by obesity rates is also dumb. Americans are fat because food is incredibly abundant, we have a cultural preference for junk food, and we are physically lazy. That says absolutely nothing about the availability of healthy food. We are unhealthy individuals, but our health care system is the absolute best at treating diseases. We pay a lot for it because we’re the only developed country where the health care industry isn’t a monopsony (single or oligarchic purchaser). Our child mortality and life expectancy are conflated with a large immigrant population and the existence of an underclass. If you equalize the results for diversity, America does just as well as the other developed countries. And it is absurd to compare the entire US to tiny countries like Denmark or even medium sized ones like France. If you broke the US into regions, you’d probably get different results. I bet New England and the Pacific Northwest would be at the top of many of those categories. Basically, this data is framed with a conclusion in mind and doesn’t account for how big, diverse, and unique the United States.

gumby 9y ago
> We are unhealthy individuals, but our health care system is the absolute best at treating diseases. I have not seen evidence that this is correct, either statistical survey or personal experience (France, Germany, Australia, USA in my case). Do you have a citation?
- deleted 9y ago
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noobermin 9y ago
>That is a preposterous way to compare poverty between countries. My guess is it's a quick way to compare while factoring differences in the cost of living. The idea is that the absolute differences between the countries might not mean much given differences in cost of living, so you compare relative difference inside a country. I can't defend it vigorously, but that's my guess. >Our child mortality and life expectancy are conflated with a large immigrant population and the existence of an underclass. If you equalize the results for diversity, America does just as well as the other developed countries. "Hmm, if we cut out of our statistics the points that draw it down, it will bring our average up." That seems like cooking the books. Shouldn't we include those who bear the brunt of externalities in society? Is that exactly what they are looking for here?
- Turing_Machine 9y ago
  > My guess is it's a quick way to compare while factoring differences in the cost of living. How does using national median income factor in the difference in the cost of living between states?
  - noobermin 9y ago
    Point taken. While I also feel like delineating by regions in the US might be smart to some extent, the states are somewhat coupled to each other due to federal programs and such. But yeah, you're probably right about it not helping since states have widely varying cost of living. Regardless, even if you do delineate by geography, excluding populations within a population is still "lipping your bad statistics to push up your mean.
- marcoperaza 9y ago
  >My guess is it's a quick way to compare while factoring differences in the cost of living It’s a pretty bad way of doing that. Despite having a much greater GDP per capita, the US has a much lower cost of living than the major European countries. My guess is that it’s an attempt to define inequality as poverty, which smells suspiciously like a predetermined conclusion against the United States.
Turing_Machine 9y ago
> That is a preposterous way to compare poverty between countries. Yes, it is. Using "national median income" as a metric totally ignores the fact that the cost of living is considerably less in Alabama than it is in, say, California. See https://www.missourieconomy.org/indicators/cost_of_living/ https://www.missourieconomy.org/indicators/cost_of_living/

gumby 9y ago

> We are unhealthy individuals, but our health care system is the absolute best at treating diseases. I have not seen evidence that this is correct, either statistical survey or personal experience (France, Germany, Australia, USA in my case). Do you have a citation?

deleted 9y ago
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noobermin 9y ago

>That is a preposterous way to compare poverty between countries. My guess is it's a quick way to compare while factoring differences in the cost of living. The idea is that the absolute differences between the countries might not mean much given differences in cost of living, so you compare relative difference inside a country. I can't defend it vigorously, but that's my guess. >Our child mortality and life expectancy are conflated with a large immigrant population and the existence of an underclass. If you equalize the results for diversity, America does just as well as the other developed countries. "Hmm, if we cut out of our statistics the points that draw it down, it will bring our average up." That seems like cooking the books. Shouldn't we include those who bear the brunt of externalities in society? Is that exactly what they are looking for here?

Turing_Machine 9y ago
> My guess is it's a quick way to compare while factoring differences in the cost of living. How does using national median income factor in the difference in the cost of living between states?
- noobermin 9y ago
  Point taken. While I also feel like delineating by regions in the US might be smart to some extent, the states are somewhat coupled to each other due to federal programs and such. But yeah, you're probably right about it not helping since states have widely varying cost of living. Regardless, even if you do delineate by geography, excluding populations within a population is still "lipping your bad statistics to push up your mean.
marcoperaza 9y ago
>My guess is it's a quick way to compare while factoring differences in the cost of living It’s a pretty bad way of doing that. Despite having a much greater GDP per capita, the US has a much lower cost of living than the major European countries. My guess is that it’s an attempt to define inequality as poverty, which smells suspiciously like a predetermined conclusion against the United States.

Turing_Machine 9y ago

> That is a preposterous way to compare poverty between countries. Yes, it is. Using "national median income" as a metric totally ignores the fact that the cost of living is considerably less in Alabama than it is in, say, California. See https://www.missourieconomy.org/indicators/cost_of_living/ https://www.missourieconomy.org/indicators/cost_of_living/