As someone who grew up well below the poverty line, I suggest you look into what is actually considered poverty in the United States. It is an extremely high th

As someone who grew up well below the poverty line, I suggest you look into what is actually considered poverty in the United States. It is an extremely high threshold in terms of absolute poverty and reflects an ever-increasing dollar amount rather than a standard of living. If you look at the number of people today who have a standard of living at or below what was considered poverty in 1918 I think you'll find the percentage has steadily decreased over time. As people get further and further from real poverty we just raise the standard. I'm not saying that is necessarily bad, but most people who talk about the poverty line don't really think about how much the standard of living at that level has improved over the past 100 years or so.