4 ms·

While there's clearly a lot in the whole $1/day thing, it's not as clear cut. If you live in Sweden on $30 a day and pay $900 a month in rent, that leaves you

While there's clearly a lot in the whole $1/day thing, it's not as clear cut. If you live in Sweden on $30 a day and pay $900 a month in rent, that leaves you with just 31 cents a day. Meanwhile if you live in India on $5 a day and pay $50 a month in rent you'd have $3.35 a day left over, and $3 in rural india goes a lot further than $3 in Sweden. Those are of course extreme examples, and the levels of poverty in places like India (families sleeping rough on the streets etc) makes even California look glorious levels of civility.

admax88qqq 5y ago
They claim to have adjusted the values for the price differences between countries. Although I'm not sure if rent was included in that adjustment.
- bryanlarsen 5y ago
  If they used the OECD's PPP, which they probably did, it includes rent.
  - iso1210 5y ago
    It's not a great measure, costs in Delhi are far higher than in rural areas, same with every city there is.
- RealityVoid 5y ago
  You know, it's funny, I see in the price adjusted the US is near the top, with most of the population seeming well off. On the other hand, there is _a lot_ of complaint about poverty in the US, and, well, a lot of unsatisfaction about the income. I honestly don't know what to think anymore. Is the US popoulation really poor or just... unhappy with what they have because they compare with others? I had a short stint in the US with a work & travel program and, my personal experience kind of painted the picture that people in the US are simply horrible with their finances. I was young, and I was smart and coming from, what I now realise, was poverty. It seemed to me I could have _easily_ had a good life over there, without even trying. Basically the ethos of FI community would have worked beautifully there. Spend less than you earn, try to have a clean life. Easy. I think people need to have at least a little while living in poverty to understand what it really looks like. I remember my childhood in one of the ex communist countries, it was... wild. Uncertainty everywhere, we could not afford basic shit. I saw catalogues from some nice EU country and I was _flabberghasted_ that people could afford such nice things. And I was young, I couldn't even process things properly. But there was obvious disconnect between my life and some of the media, promotional material, films, cartoons I was seeing. It certainly gave me a interesting perspective.
  - lovich 5y ago
    Inequality of wealth and/or income is how you get high averages but still see people living in poverty. Something like 10% of Americans experience food insecurity throughout the year and I’d place that as a pretty basic necessity of life
    - alboy 5y ago
      The USDA defines[1] food insecurity to include the following: >Food Insecurity >Low food security (old label=Food insecurity without hunger): reports of reduced quality, variety, or desirability of diet. Little or no indication of reduced food intake. People in other countries would scratch their heads at the very concept of "food insecurity without hunger". [1] https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-u-s/definitions-of-food-security/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/fo...
      - ModernMech 5y ago
        There are two levels of food insecurity described in your source. Why did you only quote the one? Very low food security—In these food-insecure households, normal eating patterns of one or more household members were disrupted and food intake was reduced at times during the year because they had insufficient money or other resources for food. 3.9 percent (5.1 million) of U.S. households had very low food security at some time during 2020. And according to the graph at the bottom it's still true that people who are Low Food Security are hungry -- just at a lower yet non-zero rate compared to Very Low Food Security.
        alboy 5y ago
        >Why did you only quote the one? Because it is the part that is the most misleading about this statistic.
codekansas 5y ago
I wonder if there were some sort of metric that could account for parity in the power in purchasing between two locations?
- coldtea 5y ago
  And I wonder if that metric that accounted for parity in the power in purchasing (let's call it PPP for convenience), if it existed, would be much more than a crude bureaucratic misrepresenation of the situation on the field and bad government statistics taken at face value...
- pchangr 5y ago
  He used international dollars, which might be precisely what you’re looking for, in his last article (https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty-in-brief https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty-in-brief) it is unclear if he used the same metric or not this time but I’d be very surprised if he didn’t, specially considering he references his old article several times.
- iso1210 5y ago
  I'm not aware of a metric that accounts for purchasing parity between say Edinburgh and Gairloch
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

admax88qqq 5y ago

They claim to have adjusted the values for the price differences between countries. Although I'm not sure if rent was included in that adjustment.

bryanlarsen 5y ago
If they used the OECD's PPP, which they probably did, it includes rent.
- iso1210 5y ago
  It's not a great measure, costs in Delhi are far higher than in rural areas, same with every city there is.
RealityVoid 5y ago
You know, it's funny, I see in the price adjusted the US is near the top, with most of the population seeming well off. On the other hand, there is _a lot_ of complaint about poverty in the US, and, well, a lot of unsatisfaction about the income. I honestly don't know what to think anymore. Is the US popoulation really poor or just... unhappy with what they have because they compare with others? I had a short stint in the US with a work & travel program and, my personal experience kind of painted the picture that people in the US are simply horrible with their finances. I was young, and I was smart and coming from, what I now realise, was poverty. It seemed to me I could have _easily_ had a good life over there, without even trying. Basically the ethos of FI community would have worked beautifully there. Spend less than you earn, try to have a clean life. Easy. I think people need to have at least a little while living in poverty to understand what it really looks like. I remember my childhood in one of the ex communist countries, it was... wild. Uncertainty everywhere, we could not afford basic shit. I saw catalogues from some nice EU country and I was _flabberghasted_ that people could afford such nice things. And I was young, I couldn't even process things properly. But there was obvious disconnect between my life and some of the media, promotional material, films, cartoons I was seeing. It certainly gave me a interesting perspective.
- lovich 5y ago
  Inequality of wealth and/or income is how you get high averages but still see people living in poverty. Something like 10% of Americans experience food insecurity throughout the year and I’d place that as a pretty basic necessity of life
  - alboy 5y ago
    The USDA defines[1] food insecurity to include the following: >Food Insecurity >Low food security (old label=Food insecurity without hunger): reports of reduced quality, variety, or desirability of diet. Little or no indication of reduced food intake. People in other countries would scratch their heads at the very concept of "food insecurity without hunger". [1] https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-u-s/definitions-of-food-security/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/fo...
    - ModernMech 5y ago
      There are two levels of food insecurity described in your source. Why did you only quote the one? Very low food security—In these food-insecure households, normal eating patterns of one or more household members were disrupted and food intake was reduced at times during the year because they had insufficient money or other resources for food. 3.9 percent (5.1 million) of U.S. households had very low food security at some time during 2020. And according to the graph at the bottom it's still true that people who are Low Food Security are hungry -- just at a lower yet non-zero rate compared to Very Low Food Security.
      - alboy 5y ago
        >Why did you only quote the one? Because it is the part that is the most misleading about this statistic.

codekansas 5y ago

I wonder if there were some sort of metric that could account for parity in the power in purchasing between two locations?

coldtea 5y ago
And I wonder if that metric that accounted for parity in the power in purchasing (let's call it PPP for convenience), if it existed, would be much more than a crude bureaucratic misrepresenation of the situation on the field and bad government statistics taken at face value...
pchangr 5y ago
He used international dollars, which might be precisely what you’re looking for, in his last article (https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty-in-brief https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty-in-brief) it is unclear if he used the same metric or not this time but I’d be very surprised if he didn’t, specially considering he references his old article several times.
iso1210 5y ago
I'm not aware of a metric that accounts for purchasing parity between say Edinburgh and Gairloch

deleted 5y ago

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