4 ms·
While their is much reasonable debate about what "true" poverty level rates are, this study uses a threshold of $20k/year for a worker. That's significantly hig
by topkai22 6y ago
While their is much reasonable debate about what "true" poverty level rates are, this study uses a threshold of $20k/year for a worker. That's significantly higher than the federal rate set by the Census bureau at $14k/year for a single worker with no other household members. A 2 earner household each pulling in $18k a year, or $36k a year, in the cheaper parts of the US is not an easy life, but its also difficult to call it a poverty. That's why many government studies of this type will use household income and size, rather than an arbitrary cut off.
I'm don't really know what to make of this number. I know what they are trying to express, but it doesn't seem well done.
- qppo 6y agoIt's not difficult to call that poverty at all. It's uncomfortable or upsetting, but not difficult.
- bumby 6y agoI think they meant it’s a different kind of poverty than we’re traditionally used to. Poverty is relative so modern poverty is much different than the dirt floor kind of poverty that was more common during the initiation of LBJ’s war on poverty
- zeroonetwothree 6y agoI guess it shows how far we’ve come, as that income would have been considered rich in 1900!
- organsnyder 6y agoBy "we", do you mean inflation?
- cercatrova 6y ago$20,000 in 1900 is worth $619,971.43 today, so not sure what your argument is. It's not the raw number value that matters but what people can buy with it.
- topkai22 6y agoThe average annual salary in 1900 was in the range of $450. That's about $14k today. What's worse, that when norms dictated a ~60 hour week and households, even at the low end of the spectrum, were often single earner. While "rich" is over stating it, based on purely inflationary measures $20k in 2020 (or $645 in 1900) was not bad pay.
- cercatrova 6y agoSure. We can still do better though.
- jandrewrogers 6y agoThe US is a big place, I think many people situated in tech cities do not appreciate just how inexpensive it is to live in many parts of the country. Cost of living can be surprisingly low in flyover country. I know many people that get on pretty adequately with a family on much less than the median US household income. Definitely not living large but also a reasonable if basic standard of living. Wages are relative to a region. If $20k/year per worker is "poverty", and to be clear it is a relatively poor wage in the US, it would be interesting to apply the same analysis to European countries. It gets uncomfortably close to the median income in countries that we typically don't view as particularly poor. Americans have anomalously high incomes, even those below the median.