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Alternative title: "events of 2020 case poverty rate to regress to 2017/2018 levels" Frankly I'm surprised the effect was so small considering that the indust

Alternative title: "events of 2020 case poverty rate to regress to 2017/2018 levels" Frankly I'm surprised the effect was so small considering that the industries hit hardest by covid employ a heck of a lot of people who are near the poverty line to begin with. I would expect all those people to be pushed to the other side of the line resulting in a much more dramatic increase in the poverty rate.

searine 6y ago
>Frankly I'm surprised the effect was so small It's not over yet! And won't be for a long time. There are a lot of people just scrapping by right now. All it will take is one big financial hit to knock them down into true poverty.
- unpolloloco 6y ago
  This metric is income-only. Which is why it's so small - extended unemployment benefits (with the bonuses) have keep a lot of people above this line. In reality, there are a lot more people than this who are just on the edge of scraping by. Some of their own volition (some people on the edge make $200k+ and it's because of a series of poor decisions), but even more people because the poverty line doesn't even pay for their studio apartment (I see you, California!), much less food or anything else.
  - mjevans 6y ago
    California, from every source I've seen, has a major, systemic, generations long market failure. The supply of housing has been nearly inelastic while demand remains high, with the obvious results. However there are also less obvious results given the time domain involved. The problems have followed those retiring out of California's market as other regions follow in the same footsteps. As an example; the greater Seattle / Puget Sound metro area reached a combination of sprawl / urban growth boundary / natural features (mountains, lakes, the sound) at about the same time that the 2008 recession killed what little development was still occurring. The price of a very cramped, noisy (poor insulation) apartment in the city without even a parking spot to store the vehicle for anything you're doing outside of the city (E.G. visiting family on a weekend, going hiking, etc) was easily at least 3K (offhand, the last time I looked), and similar units in the suburbs quite far out, if available, were about 1.5K per month. There might be more rural areas, but those were excluded from my search as the last time I looked they failed even the FCC's definition of broadband (25mbit down, 3mbit up). I suspect any areas out that far with good Internet would still have bad prices.
    - orangecat 6y ago
      California, from every source I've seen, has a major, systemic, generations long market failure. Failure, yes. Market, no. Local governments will point guns at you if you try to build more housing.
      - masonic 6y ago
        There are about 4,000 added units within a mile radius of me (Santa Clara / Sunnyvale border) in an 18 month span (would have been a year without Covid)... nearly 3,000 adjacent to Lawrence Expressway alone. You don't have a clue what you're talking about.
    - Sevii 6y ago
      Seattle prices have dropped with the pandemic. Even pre-covid I was paying roughly 2k for a studio with parking. Now that same apartment would be 200-300 a month cheaper.
    - adolph 6y ago
      The phrase “market failure” often implies that left to their own devices people can’t find a way to satisfice wants and needs through the normal process of selling, buying and owning. My impression of California housing (and likely Seattle too) is that there are other factors at play and that the “market” isn’t the thing causing the “failure.”
- hrjfkgkgk 6y ago
  lol came here only to amuse myself as you get downvoted for a valid comment
bmitc 6y ago
I think using the word regress seems to imply that it was improving. Wealth inequality in the U.S. has been getting worse at faster rates, even before 2020.
- Eridrus 6y ago
  Poverty metrics were improving.
  - lumost 6y ago
    These two seem at odds, are we defining poverty in such a way that it's decoupled from the expected living standard of the age?
    - wpasc 6y ago
      If you define poverty as income related to costs of living and obtaining necessities for living, it should be entirely decoupled from income inequality. If the poorest 20% of americans had their incomes triple over night without a corresponding increase of the costs of living and Bezos becomes a trillionare, poverty would have decrease with income inequality worsening. If the richest Americans all saw 75% of their wealth and income evaporate overnight while the poorest 50% americans lost 10% wealth and income, income inequality would reduce but poverty would still increase. You might say that income inequality contributes to disparities in political influence which may cause more longterm poverty, but that link has far too many steps in it (political corruption for example) to say the two are now directly linked
      - lumost 6y ago
        I think that definition is susceptible to defining the "necessities for living" in ways that underestimate poverty. How do you define what's the standard of living? As of 2021 I'd imagine that several necessities for interacting with society such as internet access and potentially even mobile access would not be universally viewed as required to be above the poverty line. Similarly while home ownership is probably not required to be above poverty line, is stable access to housing required? What about having sufficient savings to survive/social support to survive the loss of a paycheck without missing rent?
coliveira 6y ago
We haven't seen all the effects of 2020. First, all these analysis are lagging indicators. Second, the poverty that started in 2020 will continue to impact lives for many years into the future.
- UnpossibleJim 6y ago
  I think one thing that 2020 that has brought to the forefront, that has been overlooked to date, how the groundwork for exporting many "white-collar" jobs the US is ready to do. I don't mean to be the Chicken Little in the room, but India and Eastern Europe have great programming resources at fractions of the cost. Management have become used to a work force that is remote and uses remote commits with communication almost entirely by email. While there will be companies that choose to "work American", I'm sure, much like the auto industry in the 70's and 80's moving manufacturing to Mexico and importing to America while maintaining the monichre of "an American company" like Ford and Chevrolet, shareholders will demand costs be kept down. There are no shipping costs on digital goods =/
hintymad 6y ago
It's pretty obvious that there has been an enlarging wealth gap and poverty rate has increased. What I don't understand is that the current narrative is to attribute such unfortunate events to systemic racism. Shouldn't we at least look at class difference, shift of industry trend, impact of policies, i.e., take the holistic view?
- syops 6y ago
  I contend that the real tragedy of American politics is that what ought to be class/labor issues gets sidetracked into race issues. If poor whites would stop thinking in terms of race and instead think in terms of class and economic justice then real progress could be made. Lyndon Johnson had a famous quote about just this. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-convince-the-lowest-white-man/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-convince-the-lowest-wh...
  - edmundsauto 6y ago
    Genuine question: how can poor whites join with POC, given how the systemic racial injustice narrative has developed? I would be worried about a “this protest isn’t about your situation, white person” response. (Given the current tenor)
    - AWildC182 6y ago
      Really you just have to frame it as such. There is a distinction here, race issues tend to deal with the interface between citizens and the government (police among other things) where class issues tend to deal with the interface between corporations and the government. This is a gross oversimplification, but I think the takeaway is it's ok to have spaces for both discussions. I'd also add that both discussions are happening concurrently. The race issue is big right now, but economic justice is still a central topic. Occupy was a good example even if not a well organized one.
      - edmundsauto 6y ago
        There is a resistance from any movement, when they have the national attention, and another movement speaks up. It seems there is a perception that the public can only care about one thing at a time. My guess is that any attempt to reframe away from race, towards social class, would be strongly opposed by key interests. That makes it very difficult to get into the conversation, and creates infighting between marginalized groups. So maybe it turns out this sociology/governance stuff is more complicated than my engineers bias wants to admit. How do you make a decision when the complexity makes prediction useless?
threepio 6y ago
> Frankly I'm surprised the effect was so small Only because of the moratorium on evictions, which is deferring a lot of financial pain till later, and thereby making today's numbers look a lot better than they are. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-10/u-s-households-may-be-70-billion-behind-on-rent https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-10/u-s-house...
- tfehring 6y ago
  Why would evictions impact the poverty rate? Isn't it just the share of people who fall under a certain level of income, without directly accounting for things like housing insecurity?
  - ak217 6y ago
    I think most directly, when people get evicted, they are at greater risk of losing their job.
    - iNate2000 6y ago
      Indeed. Those of us with stable housing take a lot of things for granted. “I’ll just shower at the gym.” Turns a shower from a 20-minute operation to more than an hour. Food storage and preparation. Clothing storage, care, and maintenance. Not to mention that getting homeless in the first place happens because of lack of resources (or poor allocation of barely sufficient resources). Then on top of that, an eviction on your credit report makes it harder to find a new place. And finding a place is hard and time-consuming. Not even taking into account the deposits and other costs.
  - Ensorceled 6y ago
    It's hard to maintain employment if you are evicted from your home, especially if you have a family. You have to move in with extended family/friends and, thus, may no longer be within commuting distance of your job. Or you could end up homeless/couch surfing and that is also very difficult for staying employed.
  - 6y ago

searine 6y ago

>Frankly I'm surprised the effect was so small It's not over yet! And won't be for a long time. There are a lot of people just scrapping by right now. All it will take is one big financial hit to knock them down into true poverty.

unpolloloco 6y ago
This metric is income-only. Which is why it's so small - extended unemployment benefits (with the bonuses) have keep a lot of people above this line. In reality, there are a lot more people than this who are just on the edge of scraping by. Some of their own volition (some people on the edge make $200k+ and it's because of a series of poor decisions), but even more people because the poverty line doesn't even pay for their studio apartment (I see you, California!), much less food or anything else.
- mjevans 6y ago
  California, from every source I've seen, has a major, systemic, generations long market failure. The supply of housing has been nearly inelastic while demand remains high, with the obvious results. However there are also less obvious results given the time domain involved. The problems have followed those retiring out of California's market as other regions follow in the same footsteps. As an example; the greater Seattle / Puget Sound metro area reached a combination of sprawl / urban growth boundary / natural features (mountains, lakes, the sound) at about the same time that the 2008 recession killed what little development was still occurring. The price of a very cramped, noisy (poor insulation) apartment in the city without even a parking spot to store the vehicle for anything you're doing outside of the city (E.G. visiting family on a weekend, going hiking, etc) was easily at least 3K (offhand, the last time I looked), and similar units in the suburbs quite far out, if available, were about 1.5K per month. There might be more rural areas, but those were excluded from my search as the last time I looked they failed even the FCC's definition of broadband (25mbit down, 3mbit up). I suspect any areas out that far with good Internet would still have bad prices.
  - orangecat 6y ago
    California, from every source I've seen, has a major, systemic, generations long market failure. Failure, yes. Market, no. Local governments will point guns at you if you try to build more housing.
    - masonic 6y ago
      There are about 4,000 added units within a mile radius of me (Santa Clara / Sunnyvale border) in an 18 month span (would have been a year without Covid)... nearly 3,000 adjacent to Lawrence Expressway alone. You don't have a clue what you're talking about.
  - Sevii 6y ago
    Seattle prices have dropped with the pandemic. Even pre-covid I was paying roughly 2k for a studio with parking. Now that same apartment would be 200-300 a month cheaper.
  - adolph 6y ago
    The phrase “market failure” often implies that left to their own devices people can’t find a way to satisfice wants and needs through the normal process of selling, buying and owning. My impression of California housing (and likely Seattle too) is that there are other factors at play and that the “market” isn’t the thing causing the “failure.”
hrjfkgkgk 6y ago
lol came here only to amuse myself as you get downvoted for a valid comment

bmitc 6y ago

I think using the word regress seems to imply that it was improving. Wealth inequality in the U.S. has been getting worse at faster rates, even before 2020.

Eridrus 6y ago
Poverty metrics were improving.
- lumost 6y ago
  These two seem at odds, are we defining poverty in such a way that it's decoupled from the expected living standard of the age?
  - wpasc 6y ago
    If you define poverty as income related to costs of living and obtaining necessities for living, it should be entirely decoupled from income inequality. If the poorest 20% of americans had their incomes triple over night without a corresponding increase of the costs of living and Bezos becomes a trillionare, poverty would have decrease with income inequality worsening. If the richest Americans all saw 75% of their wealth and income evaporate overnight while the poorest 50% americans lost 10% wealth and income, income inequality would reduce but poverty would still increase. You might say that income inequality contributes to disparities in political influence which may cause more longterm poverty, but that link has far too many steps in it (political corruption for example) to say the two are now directly linked
    - lumost 6y ago
      I think that definition is susceptible to defining the "necessities for living" in ways that underestimate poverty. How do you define what's the standard of living? As of 2021 I'd imagine that several necessities for interacting with society such as internet access and potentially even mobile access would not be universally viewed as required to be above the poverty line. Similarly while home ownership is probably not required to be above poverty line, is stable access to housing required? What about having sufficient savings to survive/social support to survive the loss of a paycheck without missing rent?

coliveira 6y ago

We haven't seen all the effects of 2020. First, all these analysis are lagging indicators. Second, the poverty that started in 2020 will continue to impact lives for many years into the future.

UnpossibleJim 6y ago
I think one thing that 2020 that has brought to the forefront, that has been overlooked to date, how the groundwork for exporting many "white-collar" jobs the US is ready to do. I don't mean to be the Chicken Little in the room, but India and Eastern Europe have great programming resources at fractions of the cost. Management have become used to a work force that is remote and uses remote commits with communication almost entirely by email. While there will be companies that choose to "work American", I'm sure, much like the auto industry in the 70's and 80's moving manufacturing to Mexico and importing to America while maintaining the monichre of "an American company" like Ford and Chevrolet, shareholders will demand costs be kept down. There are no shipping costs on digital goods =/

hintymad 6y ago

It's pretty obvious that there has been an enlarging wealth gap and poverty rate has increased. What I don't understand is that the current narrative is to attribute such unfortunate events to systemic racism. Shouldn't we at least look at class difference, shift of industry trend, impact of policies, i.e., take the holistic view?

syops 6y ago
I contend that the real tragedy of American politics is that what ought to be class/labor issues gets sidetracked into race issues. If poor whites would stop thinking in terms of race and instead think in terms of class and economic justice then real progress could be made. Lyndon Johnson had a famous quote about just this. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-convince-the-lowest-white-man/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-convince-the-lowest-wh...
- edmundsauto 6y ago
  Genuine question: how can poor whites join with POC, given how the systemic racial injustice narrative has developed? I would be worried about a “this protest isn’t about your situation, white person” response. (Given the current tenor)
  - AWildC182 6y ago
    Really you just have to frame it as such. There is a distinction here, race issues tend to deal with the interface between citizens and the government (police among other things) where class issues tend to deal with the interface between corporations and the government. This is a gross oversimplification, but I think the takeaway is it's ok to have spaces for both discussions. I'd also add that both discussions are happening concurrently. The race issue is big right now, but economic justice is still a central topic. Occupy was a good example even if not a well organized one.
    - edmundsauto 6y ago
      There is a resistance from any movement, when they have the national attention, and another movement speaks up. It seems there is a perception that the public can only care about one thing at a time. My guess is that any attempt to reframe away from race, towards social class, would be strongly opposed by key interests. That makes it very difficult to get into the conversation, and creates infighting between marginalized groups. So maybe it turns out this sociology/governance stuff is more complicated than my engineers bias wants to admit. How do you make a decision when the complexity makes prediction useless?

threepio 6y ago

> Frankly I'm surprised the effect was so small Only because of the moratorium on evictions, which is deferring a lot of financial pain till later, and thereby making today's numbers look a lot better than they are. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-10/u-s-households-may-be-70-billion-behind-on-rent https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-10/u-s-house...

tfehring 6y ago
Why would evictions impact the poverty rate? Isn't it just the share of people who fall under a certain level of income, without directly accounting for things like housing insecurity?
- ak217 6y ago
  I think most directly, when people get evicted, they are at greater risk of losing their job.
  - iNate2000 6y ago
    Indeed. Those of us with stable housing take a lot of things for granted. “I’ll just shower at the gym.” Turns a shower from a 20-minute operation to more than an hour. Food storage and preparation. Clothing storage, care, and maintenance. Not to mention that getting homeless in the first place happens because of lack of resources (or poor allocation of barely sufficient resources). Then on top of that, an eviction on your credit report makes it harder to find a new place. And finding a place is hard and time-consuming. Not even taking into account the deposits and other costs.
- Ensorceled 6y ago
  It's hard to maintain employment if you are evicted from your home, especially if you have a family. You have to move in with extended family/friends and, thus, may no longer be within commuting distance of your job. Or you could end up homeless/couch surfing and that is also very difficult for staying employed.
- 6y ago