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I'm struggling to understand what conclusions you can draw from that. For one thing, what of that 14%? Do those people not exist? Are they not statistically

I'm struggling to understand what conclusions you can draw from that. For one thing, what of that 14%? Do those people not exist? Are they not statistically significant for you to care about them? For another, are the 47% who own a computer somehow automatically well off? Do you understand the economic situation a family can be in? They own a computer whose net worth is about $50. At some point they bought a television. Cable--100$ a month for the fancy kind. The worth of all these things put together is far below the monthly cost of their housing, which they struggle to pay each month. They could sell or stop paying for all of those above "assets" and be in danger of not being able to afford housing and food. There are places where housing is cheaper. Those places are inevitably situated the furthest distance from locations of economic opportunity. So car and gas and commute, the monthly costs of which dwarf the assets you mentioned. And let's get back to your claimed 14% who have none of these things. Imagine that--I go to the local thrift store and there's old PCs there that are almost given away (I've donated plenty throughout my years as a contractor--they're barely worth the poundage cost). In American culture, not being connected to pop culture is anathema. Just as cell phone usage has exploded in the poorest countries, in America the first thing parents will provide for their children is television. It is clear your definition of "barely surviving" is different from the author's (and mine). There's always people chiming in on discussions like this with the "starving children in Africa" argument. E.g. we shouldn't feel sorry for the people mentioned in the article because if you lift their shirt you won't see their ribcage standing out (you'll probably see a bunch of fat from their subsistence on cheap processed food). Are we really a society where that is the measure of how well we take care of our citizens? To me not feeding people is barbaric. Not providing health care to everyone is just short of barbaric. Not carving out societal resources (like public libraries) for shared use, targeted at people who slip through the cracks, is terrible. Enjoy your data set.

yummyfajitas 15y ago
The 14% you describe are bottom 14% of the bottom 10-20% - i.e., the bottom 2-3% of the nation. They can be dealt with by a small, targeted program. The rest can turn off cable and go pay for a computer at kinkos once in a while. Last time I was in NYC, it was about $0.10/minute, so if the "struggling" man skipped one or two big macs he could afford to pay for internet service (and he'd be slightly closer to a healthy bodyweight). There are places where housing is cheaper. Those places are inevitably situated the furthest distance from locations of economic opportunity. You seem to be holding the mistaken belief that the poor work for a living. Please educate yourself. http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2009.pdf http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2009.pdf
- lemmsjid 15y ago
  See, here you go again. You use vague statistics to make absolute statements that are starkly contradicted by the statistics you started with. I just read the pdf you sent. As expected, it doesn't support your absolute conclusion (that the poor don't work). In my own social circle, I know the following: 1. Poor people who work for a living. 2. Poor people who can't work because they have a felony record. 3. Poor people who can't work because of health reasons. 4. Poor people who don't work because they're lazy. I also know: 1. Rich people who work for a living. 2. Rich people whose family members don't work because they're "lazy". You see, there's all sorts of people. Let's take the "worst" examples--the people who both poor and out of work. Personally I think even "lazy" people deserve to receive the basic care of civilized society. Why? Because "lazy" is often code for referring to people with mental deficiencies, emotional problems, histories of severe abuse, and other issues that lead to severe depression and failure to thrive. A lot of modern American polical rhetoric centers around an idea that might be called the "virtuous poor". Which is that poor people only deserve to be helped if they are virtuous--good, salt-of-the-earth people who are struggling constantly to survive--who are savvily trimming coupons and saving every cent so they can better themselves and their children. On the other side are the non-virtuous poor. The people who spend their government check on alcohol, crack cocaine, or satellite TV. In America, we obsess over separating the virtuous from non-virtuous poor, ignoring the self-sustaining and cyclic nature of poverty. The clear correlations between poverty and behavior problems, learning problems, health problems, etc. In our self righteous drive to only help those who help themselves, we often ignore the clear consequences. For every self-satisfied working upper-middle class person I know, I also know someone who has similar intelligence, similar drive (or lack thereof), but wasn't lucky enough to be ushered into college by their well-to-do parents--who wasn't lucky enough to be offered this and that entry-level position by their well-to-do connections. And yes, such a person doesn't become the virtuous poor we all like to help, such a person becomes the dirty, yucky poor that we want to forget about--the poor people who aren't constantly fighting to better themselves. You can throw out statistics--all of your statistics will show a predominance of this and a dearth of that, and in the end, your rounding errors will still cover millions of people. And your response to the plight of those millions of people is that we can help them with "a small, targeted program." If only we'd thought of that sooner--here we were trying big, untargeted programs, when all we needed to do is shrink and target them.
urbanjunkie 15y ago
So, there is a need for external assistance.
pacala 15y ago
But the poor might, gasp, enjoy their $100 a month cable. The horror, poor people enjoying something in their otherwise deprived and miserable life.

yummyfajitas 15y ago

The 14% you describe are bottom 14% of the bottom 10-20% - i.e., the bottom 2-3% of the nation. They can be dealt with by a small, targeted program. The rest can turn off cable and go pay for a computer at kinkos once in a while. Last time I was in NYC, it was about $0.10/minute, so if the "struggling" man skipped one or two big macs he could afford to pay for internet service (and he'd be slightly closer to a healthy bodyweight). There are places where housing is cheaper. Those places are inevitably situated the furthest distance from locations of economic opportunity. You seem to be holding the mistaken belief that the poor work for a living. Please educate yourself. http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2009.pdf http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2009.pdf

lemmsjid 15y ago
See, here you go again. You use vague statistics to make absolute statements that are starkly contradicted by the statistics you started with. I just read the pdf you sent. As expected, it doesn't support your absolute conclusion (that the poor don't work). In my own social circle, I know the following: 1. Poor people who work for a living. 2. Poor people who can't work because they have a felony record. 3. Poor people who can't work because of health reasons. 4. Poor people who don't work because they're lazy. I also know: 1. Rich people who work for a living. 2. Rich people whose family members don't work because they're "lazy". You see, there's all sorts of people. Let's take the "worst" examples--the people who both poor and out of work. Personally I think even "lazy" people deserve to receive the basic care of civilized society. Why? Because "lazy" is often code for referring to people with mental deficiencies, emotional problems, histories of severe abuse, and other issues that lead to severe depression and failure to thrive. A lot of modern American polical rhetoric centers around an idea that might be called the "virtuous poor". Which is that poor people only deserve to be helped if they are virtuous--good, salt-of-the-earth people who are struggling constantly to survive--who are savvily trimming coupons and saving every cent so they can better themselves and their children. On the other side are the non-virtuous poor. The people who spend their government check on alcohol, crack cocaine, or satellite TV. In America, we obsess over separating the virtuous from non-virtuous poor, ignoring the self-sustaining and cyclic nature of poverty. The clear correlations between poverty and behavior problems, learning problems, health problems, etc. In our self righteous drive to only help those who help themselves, we often ignore the clear consequences. For every self-satisfied working upper-middle class person I know, I also know someone who has similar intelligence, similar drive (or lack thereof), but wasn't lucky enough to be ushered into college by their well-to-do parents--who wasn't lucky enough to be offered this and that entry-level position by their well-to-do connections. And yes, such a person doesn't become the virtuous poor we all like to help, such a person becomes the dirty, yucky poor that we want to forget about--the poor people who aren't constantly fighting to better themselves. You can throw out statistics--all of your statistics will show a predominance of this and a dearth of that, and in the end, your rounding errors will still cover millions of people. And your response to the plight of those millions of people is that we can help them with "a small, targeted program." If only we'd thought of that sooner--here we were trying big, untargeted programs, when all we needed to do is shrink and target them.

urbanjunkie 15y ago

So, there is a need for external assistance.

pacala 15y ago

But the poor might, gasp, enjoy their $100 a month cable. The horror, poor people enjoying something in their otherwise deprived and miserable life.