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> "What you're arguing is that since we're materially better off than the Middle Ages" No -- what he's arguing is that we're materially better off than the per

> "What you're arguing is that since we're materially better off than the Middle Ages" No -- what he's arguing is that we're materially better off than the periods of time in which you and the article are trying to compare to. It's dishonest to make a comparison to some decades ago and then complain when others make comparison to those same time periods. The word "poor" does have real meaning -- but its meaning is relative. 1959 poor and 2009 poor are not the same thing. The measures used to define poverty (and inflation) are not absolute, objective, or static, despite what wikipedia claims.

dalke 15y ago
No, I'm trying to argue that 1) the definition that the US uses was chosen precisely because it isn't relative and can be used to judge of the "War on Poverty" has been won, 2) that being better off materially is only one aspect of being poor; shelter and health are two other factors, and 3) choosing a purely material, absolute definition, doesn't make sense since if you go back in time then everyone was poor. And I refuse to say that Louis XIV was poor simply because he didn't have air conditioning. While someone who has to decide between food and rent money, despite having a plasma TV bought two years ago, before losing a job due to protracted illness, is poor. There's a simple resolution to this - what do you define as poor? How many people in the US do you consider are poor? Are people now significantly less poor than they were in 1970, and how do you measure that? Since you don't like the baseline of Wikipedia, I point you to the US Census Department at http://www.census.gov/hhes/povmeas/publications/orshansky.html#C2 http://www.census.gov/hhes/povmeas/publications/orshansky.ht... (next two paragraphs) Orshansky accurately described her poverty thresholds as a "relatively absolute" measure of poverty(60), inasmuch as they were developed from calculations that made use of the consumption patterns (at a particular point in time) of the U.S. population as a whole. (In the dichotomy between relative and absolute definitions of poverty, one of the essential characteristics of a purely "absolute" definition of poverty is that it is derived without any reference to the consumption patterns or income levels of the population as a whole.(61)) However, while Orshansky's poverty thresholds were not a purely absolute measure, they were also quite clearly not a purely relative measure, such as the 50-percent-of-median-income measure proposed by Britain's Peter Townsend in 1962 and (in the United States) by Victor Fuchs in 1965.(62) The relativity is that the definitions assume that 1/3rd of income goes to food, which was the case in the 1950s. That is less now, while housing and transportation/energy costs are higher. So okay, yes, there's some relativity in the definition, but it isn't by far a relative definition.
- lotharbot 15y ago
  Since you want to introduce far-past figures into the mix, let me ask you this: would it be valid to compare how many poor people there are today to how many poor people there were 500 years ago? Would that comparison even make sense? I contend that it would not -- not that modern people aren't "poor" or that ancient people are all "poor", just that you can't treat them as though they're the same. It doesn't make sense to try to count them and say "OMG the number of poor went up" or "OMG the number of poor dropped" over time periods of longer than a few years, because in terms of material goods, shelter, health, nutrition, and all sorts of other factors, "poor" changes enough to make the comparison invalid. Likewise, it would be pointless to compare the percent of the US population who are "poor" to the percent of the Sudanese population who are "poor" because you're talking about such different characteristics. I think the definition of "poor" you gave earlier is OK. It's just not an absolute definition, and you need an absolute definition if you want to compare numbers over time.
  - dalke 15y ago
    Poverty existed 500 years ago. The Romans had poverty (http://books.google.com/books?id=Aw4cHjMbH94C&dq=Poverty%2BIn&ie=ISO-8859-1&source=gbs_gdata http://books.google.com/books?id=Aw4cHjMbH94C&dq=Poverty... ) . The Greeks had poverty (http://www.amazon.com/Greek-Praise-Poverty-Origins-Cynicism/dp/0268025827 http://www.amazon.com/Greek-Praise-Poverty-Origins-Cynicism/...) (that book talking about how the Cynics preferred poverty). Therefore yes, it's possible to make meaningful comparisons of the numbers of people who are poor. It's possible to ask questions like: "Is poverty a temporary condition, or a permanent characteristic of a subpopulation?", and "Is it due to the inability of the culture to generate enough resources, or is it due maldistribution of those resources?" It's not easy. But your view seems to be that the definition changes so quickly that a person in 1991 and the same person now can't judge if they were poorer now or then. Factors like "income security, economic stability and the predictability of one's continued means to meet basic needs all serve as absolute indicators of poverty", yet you insist that because more people have access to a full kitchen, running water, internet, penicillin, or whatever then it's simply not possible to make valid comparisons. While I disagree, and am dumbfounded that you don't recognize those non-material, absolute factors as the essential characteristic of poverty.

dalke 15y ago

No, I'm trying to argue that 1) the definition that the US uses was chosen precisely because it isn't relative and can be used to judge of the "War on Poverty" has been won, 2) that being better off materially is only one aspect of being poor; shelter and health are two other factors, and 3) choosing a purely material, absolute definition, doesn't make sense since if you go back in time then everyone was poor. And I refuse to say that Louis XIV was poor simply because he didn't have air conditioning. While someone who has to decide between food and rent money, despite having a plasma TV bought two years ago, before losing a job due to protracted illness, is poor. There's a simple resolution to this - what do you define as poor? How many people in the US do you consider are poor? Are people now significantly less poor than they were in 1970, and how do you measure that? Since you don't like the baseline of Wikipedia, I point you to the US Census Department at http://www.census.gov/hhes/povmeas/publications/orshansky.html#C2 http://www.census.gov/hhes/povmeas/publications/orshansky.ht... (next two paragraphs) Orshansky accurately described her poverty thresholds as a "relatively absolute" measure of poverty(60), inasmuch as they were developed from calculations that made use of the consumption patterns (at a particular point in time) of the U.S. population as a whole. (In the dichotomy between relative and absolute definitions of poverty, one of the essential characteristics of a purely "absolute" definition of poverty is that it is derived without any reference to the consumption patterns or income levels of the population as a whole.(61)) However, while Orshansky's poverty thresholds were not a purely absolute measure, they were also quite clearly not a purely relative measure, such as the 50-percent-of-median-income measure proposed by Britain's Peter Townsend in 1962 and (in the United States) by Victor Fuchs in 1965.(62) The relativity is that the definitions assume that 1/3rd of income goes to food, which was the case in the 1950s. That is less now, while housing and transportation/energy costs are higher. So okay, yes, there's some relativity in the definition, but it isn't by far a relative definition.

lotharbot 15y ago
Since you want to introduce far-past figures into the mix, let me ask you this: would it be valid to compare how many poor people there are today to how many poor people there were 500 years ago? Would that comparison even make sense? I contend that it would not -- not that modern people aren't "poor" or that ancient people are all "poor", just that you can't treat them as though they're the same. It doesn't make sense to try to count them and say "OMG the number of poor went up" or "OMG the number of poor dropped" over time periods of longer than a few years, because in terms of material goods, shelter, health, nutrition, and all sorts of other factors, "poor" changes enough to make the comparison invalid. Likewise, it would be pointless to compare the percent of the US population who are "poor" to the percent of the Sudanese population who are "poor" because you're talking about such different characteristics. I think the definition of "poor" you gave earlier is OK. It's just not an absolute definition, and you need an absolute definition if you want to compare numbers over time.
- dalke 15y ago
  Poverty existed 500 years ago. The Romans had poverty (http://books.google.com/books?id=Aw4cHjMbH94C&dq=Poverty%2BIn&ie=ISO-8859-1&source=gbs_gdata http://books.google.com/books?id=Aw4cHjMbH94C&dq=Poverty... ) . The Greeks had poverty (http://www.amazon.com/Greek-Praise-Poverty-Origins-Cynicism/dp/0268025827 http://www.amazon.com/Greek-Praise-Poverty-Origins-Cynicism/...) (that book talking about how the Cynics preferred poverty). Therefore yes, it's possible to make meaningful comparisons of the numbers of people who are poor. It's possible to ask questions like: "Is poverty a temporary condition, or a permanent characteristic of a subpopulation?", and "Is it due to the inability of the culture to generate enough resources, or is it due maldistribution of those resources?" It's not easy. But your view seems to be that the definition changes so quickly that a person in 1991 and the same person now can't judge if they were poorer now or then. Factors like "income security, economic stability and the predictability of one's continued means to meet basic needs all serve as absolute indicators of poverty", yet you insist that because more people have access to a full kitchen, running water, internet, penicillin, or whatever then it's simply not possible to make valid comparisons. While I disagree, and am dumbfounded that you don't recognize those non-material, absolute factors as the essential characteristic of poverty.