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Poor Americans often don't understand what it's like to be poor. Spending extended time in a severely damaged third world country absent all security opens all

Poor Americans often don't understand what it's like to be poor. Spending extended time in a severely damaged third world country absent all security opens all kinds of perspectives.

elliekelly 5y ago
And how would you suggest poor Americans afford the plane ticket necessary to achieve those perspectives? Just because there are people in the world who have it worse doesn’t mean poor Americans should just deal with it.
- austincheney 5y ago
  If poverty were an easily solved problem then it wouldn't be a problem at all and we wouldn't be having this discussion. That is the gap between sympathy versus empathy and differences in economic opportunity versus disadvantages of social pressures/reinforcement.
  - gonzo41 5y ago
    Poverty is a choice. Its not unsolvable. In Australia we had economic support that was pretty generous during COVID. Poverty pretty much vanished. Then it got expensive, the support ended and it's back. Poverty is a choice.
    - mardifoufs 5y ago
      But maybe it ended because Australia couldn't just keep paying forever, thus again proving that poverty isn't just solved. The entire reason why Australia was able to do it in the first place was because it was understood it would be a temporary measure caused by an emergency.
      - gonzo41 5y ago
        Yes, society has chosen not to deal with poverty like an emergency. It chose. And Australia can afford it. Money is just a construct! but seriously it is and feeding people is cheaper than building useless submarines for the navy and we're not stopping that. And just on your point, the government has discretion over it's own spending, it didn't need to vote to give people money like in the states. The Australian government can turn on and off the tap when it likes it's not restricted as heavily as you'd think.
        AdrianB1 5y ago
        Money is just a construct, but you cannot feed people with money and cannot shelter them in money. If money is just a construct and you have a money printer who will sell you food and build houses for your Monopoly money?
    - ddingus 5y ago
      Sometime during the last decade, I centered on all this being a priority problem. It is indeed a choice, and the current poverty and struggle that goes with it is unnecessary.
mmsc 5y ago
You're not wrong. But, poor Americans often don't understand what it's like to be poor, because of the abundance of credit and debt.
- smitty1e 5y ago
  And resources. I was sobered in Afghanistan about a decade back by the number of economic problems that must be managed in parallel to go from "tough 'hood" to successful country. On the other hand, we seem to flirt with going the other direction. May we sober up.
Clewza313 5y ago
Obviously there are worse places than the US (for example, straight up dying of starvation is pretty rare), but the poor in the US are materially worse off than those pretty much anywhere else in the rich world. https://confrontingpoverty.org/poverty-facts-and-myths/americas-poor-are-worse-off-than-elsewhere/ https://confrontingpoverty.org/poverty-facts-and-myths/ameri...
pattusk 5y ago
Having lived in the third world, I would say that the American poors are probably the closest you're going to get to "third world poor" anywhere in the developed world. Life expectancy, crime rates, housing quality and disease in poor American communities are on level incomparable to any other developed country I can think of.
- refurb 5y ago
  This is a pretty ridiculous statement as someone that has lived in multiple countries including the US. I would put forth the First Nations in Canada where many reservations yet have a source of clean drinking water despite gov’ts promises for the last couple of decades to help them with it. And to compare being poor in the US with the Third World is also shows a lack of knowledge. When you’ve lived in places where the govt will do nothing for you and the only source of relief is the charity of neighbors or NGOs you’d learn to appreciate what America offers.
  - phobosanomaly 5y ago
    There are plenty of First-Nations people in the United States without access to clean drinking water. In your time in the US, did you get a chance to visit the Navajo reservation? "Tribes without clean water demand an end to decades of US government neglect US has broken promises as Indigenous Americans lack access to safe water, a crisis worsened by Covid-19" "An estimated one in 10 Indigenous Americans lack access to safe tap water or basic sanitation..." https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/28/indigenous-americans-drinking-water-navajo-nation#:~:text=An%20estimated%20one%20in%2010,gastrointestinal%20disease%20are%20more%20likely https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/28/indigenous-a.... Please check out this photo-essay on the homeless in Los Angeles. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-03-08/homelessness-and-the-pandemic https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-03-08/homeless... What do these folks have that the poor in other countries don't? Food insecurity, outbreaks of disease, living in improvised structures, threat of violence, lack of access to health care are all present in the United States. Did you get a chance to visit anywhere like the Imperial Valley? "Two weeks ago, federal prosecutors filed a lawsuit intended to clean up or shut down Duroville, which they said was lacking in necessary permits but plentiful in horrid conditions: defective construction, faulty electrical wiring, unhealthful distribution of drinking water and a deeply flawed septic system. Those ponds of gray. “The system itself leaks sewage under and around trailers and in common areas,” the government charged in court papers, leading to raw sewage being “tracked into trailers and elsewhere on the feet of residents and their pets.” But everything about Duroville is hard, just as its name suggests. It sits on the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indian Reservation, where Mr. Duro is a prominent member. Weary of the news media, he has hired a spokesman, Alan Singer, who stops short of equating Duroville with nirvana, but calls the tales of squalor overblown and racist. Mr. Singer asks one question, though, that pricks like a cactus: If Duroville is shut down, where will these thousands live? So far, no answer." https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/us/21land.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/us/21land.html The order of magnitude in numbers may differ, but there is plenty of grinding poverty in the United States. The more you travel in the United States, the more you realize that it isn't the magical shining city on the hill people think it is.
heymijo 5y ago
Opens perspectives, okay. Solves any of their problems? No. We aren’t talking about people in a wealth/income bracket who have to tighten things up and go from shopping at Whole Foods to Safeway. We’re talking about people who have no economic security. Every financial decision is a trade off about necessities. Living with the very real possibility of losing housing at any time. So the Dalio quotes in your profile about harsh truths are fine but not helpful here except in that I hope you aren’t too sensitive to hear this truth.
jheriko 5y ago
agreed, although its not a helpful perspective i'd rather be homeless here in the UK where its nearly impossible to die without making much effort than pretty much anywhere else in the world. the opportunities available for things like water and food are enormous compared to where i started
spaetzleesser 5y ago
That's incredibly condescending. What good can come out of saying this? Should poor people stop worrying about paying their bills because other countries have it worse?
sidlls 5y ago
It's fairly hilarious to me when this sentiment comes up. Gun violence, police brutality, lack of access to food, pest-infested ramshackle housing, lack of access to utilities of every sort (water, power), and poor or little access to education are all things I regularly witnessed or experienced when I was growing up poor in America. I find generally the people who express what you have simply don't realize how terribly wrong they are. You know, your comment doesn't really have much to do with the article anyhow. I guarantee you no matter how much "better off" American poors are than some elsewhere, they definitely do not as a rule think those who do have it worse are in their predicament due to their own choices. That is, there's a high degree of overlap, as compared to the relationship between America's poor and its rich/powerful.
317070 5y ago
What I find the more useful comparison, is to compare the poor of a country, to the median income of other countries. That puts the US bottom decile household at $10800 slightly below the median Malaysian, Russian, Ukrainian or Mexican household. The bottom percent household income is at $1400 in the US, which puts them slightly below the median in Zambia, Burkina Faso and Benin. Note, these other countries also have poor! And this is a comparison in dollars, not in standard of living. But it gives a broad idea of the level of poverty some people are dealing with.
- dougmwne 5y ago
  I think that's probably quite misleading to just look at nominal value. Purchasing power parity might be a better metric, but I still don't think that captures the difference in people's lives in different countries. Being poor in America is means perhaps having some comforts that are rare even for middle class people in other countries. For example, the home square footage, number of appliances, size of wardrobe, number of cars, etc. But on the other hand, middle class people in a less materially rich country may have government safety nets, accessable health care, higher education, in-demand skills, ability to save and access credit, manageable work hours, and enjoy the social respect that comes with professional careers.

Poor Americans often don't understand what it's like to be poor. Spending extended time in a severely damaged third world country absent all security opens all kinds of perspectives.

elliekelly 5y ago

And how would you suggest poor Americans afford the plane ticket necessary to achieve those perspectives? Just because there are people in the world who have it worse doesn’t mean poor Americans should just deal with it.

austincheney 5y ago
If poverty were an easily solved problem then it wouldn't be a problem at all and we wouldn't be having this discussion. That is the gap between sympathy versus empathy and differences in economic opportunity versus disadvantages of social pressures/reinforcement.
- gonzo41 5y ago
  Poverty is a choice. Its not unsolvable. In Australia we had economic support that was pretty generous during COVID. Poverty pretty much vanished. Then it got expensive, the support ended and it's back. Poverty is a choice.
  - mardifoufs 5y ago
    But maybe it ended because Australia couldn't just keep paying forever, thus again proving that poverty isn't just solved. The entire reason why Australia was able to do it in the first place was because it was understood it would be a temporary measure caused by an emergency.
    - gonzo41 5y ago
      Yes, society has chosen not to deal with poverty like an emergency. It chose. And Australia can afford it. Money is just a construct! but seriously it is and feeding people is cheaper than building useless submarines for the navy and we're not stopping that. And just on your point, the government has discretion over it's own spending, it didn't need to vote to give people money like in the states. The Australian government can turn on and off the tap when it likes it's not restricted as heavily as you'd think.
      - AdrianB1 5y ago
        Money is just a construct, but you cannot feed people with money and cannot shelter them in money. If money is just a construct and you have a money printer who will sell you food and build houses for your Monopoly money?
  - ddingus 5y ago
    Sometime during the last decade, I centered on all this being a priority problem. It is indeed a choice, and the current poverty and struggle that goes with it is unnecessary.

mmsc 5y ago

You're not wrong. But, poor Americans often don't understand what it's like to be poor, because of the abundance of credit and debt.

smitty1e 5y ago
And resources. I was sobered in Afghanistan about a decade back by the number of economic problems that must be managed in parallel to go from "tough 'hood" to successful country. On the other hand, we seem to flirt with going the other direction. May we sober up.

Clewza313 5y ago

Obviously there are worse places than the US (for example, straight up dying of starvation is pretty rare), but the poor in the US are materially worse off than those pretty much anywhere else in the rich world. https://confrontingpoverty.org/poverty-facts-and-myths/americas-poor-are-worse-off-than-elsewhere/ https://confrontingpoverty.org/poverty-facts-and-myths/ameri...

pattusk 5y ago

Having lived in the third world, I would say that the American poors are probably the closest you're going to get to "third world poor" anywhere in the developed world. Life expectancy, crime rates, housing quality and disease in poor American communities are on level incomparable to any other developed country I can think of.

refurb 5y ago
This is a pretty ridiculous statement as someone that has lived in multiple countries including the US. I would put forth the First Nations in Canada where many reservations yet have a source of clean drinking water despite gov’ts promises for the last couple of decades to help them with it. And to compare being poor in the US with the Third World is also shows a lack of knowledge. When you’ve lived in places where the govt will do nothing for you and the only source of relief is the charity of neighbors or NGOs you’d learn to appreciate what America offers.
- phobosanomaly 5y ago
  There are plenty of First-Nations people in the United States without access to clean drinking water. In your time in the US, did you get a chance to visit the Navajo reservation? "Tribes without clean water demand an end to decades of US government neglect US has broken promises as Indigenous Americans lack access to safe water, a crisis worsened by Covid-19" "An estimated one in 10 Indigenous Americans lack access to safe tap water or basic sanitation..." https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/28/indigenous-americans-drinking-water-navajo-nation#:~:text=An%20estimated%20one%20in%2010,gastrointestinal%20disease%20are%20more%20likely https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/28/indigenous-a.... Please check out this photo-essay on the homeless in Los Angeles. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-03-08/homelessness-and-the-pandemic https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-03-08/homeless... What do these folks have that the poor in other countries don't? Food insecurity, outbreaks of disease, living in improvised structures, threat of violence, lack of access to health care are all present in the United States. Did you get a chance to visit anywhere like the Imperial Valley? "Two weeks ago, federal prosecutors filed a lawsuit intended to clean up or shut down Duroville, which they said was lacking in necessary permits but plentiful in horrid conditions: defective construction, faulty electrical wiring, unhealthful distribution of drinking water and a deeply flawed septic system. Those ponds of gray. “The system itself leaks sewage under and around trailers and in common areas,” the government charged in court papers, leading to raw sewage being “tracked into trailers and elsewhere on the feet of residents and their pets.” But everything about Duroville is hard, just as its name suggests. It sits on the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indian Reservation, where Mr. Duro is a prominent member. Weary of the news media, he has hired a spokesman, Alan Singer, who stops short of equating Duroville with nirvana, but calls the tales of squalor overblown and racist. Mr. Singer asks one question, though, that pricks like a cactus: If Duroville is shut down, where will these thousands live? So far, no answer." https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/us/21land.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/us/21land.html The order of magnitude in numbers may differ, but there is plenty of grinding poverty in the United States. The more you travel in the United States, the more you realize that it isn't the magical shining city on the hill people think it is.

heymijo 5y ago

Opens perspectives, okay. Solves any of their problems? No. We aren’t talking about people in a wealth/income bracket who have to tighten things up and go from shopping at Whole Foods to Safeway. We’re talking about people who have no economic security. Every financial decision is a trade off about necessities. Living with the very real possibility of losing housing at any time. So the Dalio quotes in your profile about harsh truths are fine but not helpful here except in that I hope you aren’t too sensitive to hear this truth.

jheriko 5y ago

agreed, although its not a helpful perspective i'd rather be homeless here in the UK where its nearly impossible to die without making much effort than pretty much anywhere else in the world. the opportunities available for things like water and food are enormous compared to where i started

spaetzleesser 5y ago

That's incredibly condescending. What good can come out of saying this? Should poor people stop worrying about paying their bills because other countries have it worse?

sidlls 5y ago

It's fairly hilarious to me when this sentiment comes up. Gun violence, police brutality, lack of access to food, pest-infested ramshackle housing, lack of access to utilities of every sort (water, power), and poor or little access to education are all things I regularly witnessed or experienced when I was growing up poor in America. I find generally the people who express what you have simply don't realize how terribly wrong they are. You know, your comment doesn't really have much to do with the article anyhow. I guarantee you no matter how much "better off" American poors are than some elsewhere, they definitely do not as a rule think those who do have it worse are in their predicament due to their own choices. That is, there's a high degree of overlap, as compared to the relationship between America's poor and its rich/powerful.

317070 5y ago

What I find the more useful comparison, is to compare the poor of a country, to the median income of other countries. That puts the US bottom decile household at $10800 slightly below the median Malaysian, Russian, Ukrainian or Mexican household. The bottom percent household income is at $1400 in the US, which puts them slightly below the median in Zambia, Burkina Faso and Benin. Note, these other countries also have poor! And this is a comparison in dollars, not in standard of living. But it gives a broad idea of the level of poverty some people are dealing with.

dougmwne 5y ago
I think that's probably quite misleading to just look at nominal value. Purchasing power parity might be a better metric, but I still don't think that captures the difference in people's lives in different countries. Being poor in America is means perhaps having some comforts that are rare even for middle class people in other countries. For example, the home square footage, number of appliances, size of wardrobe, number of cars, etc. But on the other hand, middle class people in a less materially rich country may have government safety nets, accessable health care, higher education, in-demand skills, ability to save and access credit, manageable work hours, and enjoy the social respect that comes with professional careers.