4 ms·

So your entire case boils down to "people are lying about being poor"

• whimsicalism 11mo ago
  You cannot trust self-survey data, I don’t know how many times this has to be hammered in. “One-Third of Americans Making $250,000 Live Paycheck-to-Paycheck, Survey Finds” [0] [0]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-01/a-third-of-americans-making-250-000-say-costs-eat-entire-salary?embedded-checkout=true https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-01/a-third-o...
  • hexator 11mo ago
    Living paycheck to paycheck is not the same thing as being in poverty
    • whimsicalism 11mo ago
      Agreed, this was an example of a similar phenomenon as to why you can’t trust self-id economic situation surveys. FWIW, we see similar effects in food security surveys with six-figure households being classified as food insecure.
      • hexator 11mo ago
        I can definitely see a situation where a renting single-earner six-figure household in a place like SF may require assistance. It's all about the relative cost of living and financial situation, you can't really make ground pronouncements like this without ignoring the data.
        • andsoitis 11mo ago
          > a situation where a renting single-earner six-figure household in a place like SF may require assistance. You think someone in SF earning six figures should be considered poor?
          • fragmede 11mo ago
            It made the news a few years back: > Single-person households making under $105,000 a year are classified as “low income” in three Bay Area counties by California’s Department of Housing and Community Development. https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/under-100k-low-income-san-francisco-18168899.php https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/under-100k-low-income-s...
            • andsoitis 11mo ago
              Ok I’ll answer. They are not poor.
              • fragmede 11mo ago
                Are you saying that based on the semantics of "poor" vs "may require assistance" vs "low income", or...? My comment has a link that's backed up by a government website. If we look at $105k in San Francisco, minus federal, state, and local taxes, you're looking at roughly $6,400/month take home pay. If you make a budget out of that, you get $3,000 for rent, $800 for groceries, $250 for transit, $250 for medical, $150 for Internet, $600 for entertainment, $900 to retirement, and then finally $400 towards an emergency fund. If you do not have all those things in your monthly, you are poor. Now, there are certainly people who have less than that, and we could argue the semantics of being destitute, vs simply poor as colloquially defined terms, but the brackets that California’s Department of Housing and Community Development has are: acutely low, extremely low, very low, low, and moderate income. We can use https://saul.pw/mag/wealth/ https://saul.pw/mag/wealth/ and say that even with a $105k/yr salary in SF, you're sitting at ↑3 or ↑4 or so, instead of using the emotionally loaded term poor if it would contribute to having a more thoughtful and substantive discussion.
                • andsoitis 11mo ago
                  Do you think someone earning 100,000 and who chooses to live in SF should be considered poor?
        • whimsicalism 11mo ago
          > may require assistance Yes, depending on their family size. But that is very different from ‘food insecure’ after receiving federal/state benefits and I do not believe that is a thing that really happens.
  • koakuma-chan 11mo ago
    One-Third of Americans they surveyed, or did they survey all Americans?
    • whimsicalism 11mo ago
      of Americans surveyed
• deleted 11mo ago
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• mikkupikku 11mo ago
  Do you really believe there are a million destitute starving wet and unclothed children wandering around outside in the UK? Obviously there is some gross exaggeration going on, like most of those million are "cold" because they have worn out hand-me-down jackets and maybe go without dinner sometimes, mostly because their parents are junky pieces of shit who can't be bothered to open a box of slop for the kid even though they're on government programs to pay for the food.
  • n4r9 11mo ago
    I don't see why parental neglect suddenly makes it okay.
    • mikkupikku 11mo ago
      Nobody said it's okay, but it's not the same thing as poverty making kids go hungry.
      • n4r9 11mo ago
        So? One million kids going without food, shelter or warmth is scandalous. It's scandalous if it's because welfare payments are too low. It's scandalous if it's because we're failing to identify neglect. Scandalous either way.
        • mikkupikku 11mo ago
          Why would a story about parental neglect be framed with discussion about Britain being one of the wealthiest countries, if not to deflect blame from neglectful parents onto society as a whole by insinuating that not enough money is spent?
          • n4r9 11mo ago
            I mean I agree that that's not the perceived thrust of the article. However, parental neglect is largely a product of the environment. Parents rarely just naturally don't care for their children. There's usually other factors; stress, debt, addiction, mental health issues etc... . These are things that a state can provide support with. It's very challenging to access good quality talking therapy, for example. And a well-funded welfare system could do more to identify children in neglected situations, and to work with the families to bring them out of it.