3 ms·

It is worth mentioning that an economy that produces higher added value will have a fallback on the lower classes too. While the delta in wealth between the ric

by kfk 12y ago

It is worth mentioning that an economy that produces higher added value will have a fallback on the lower classes too. While the delta in wealth between the rich and the poor has been increasing, in relative terms the poor have been getting richer. A poor today is way better than a poor 50 years ago or even 20 years ago. If you are concerned about what poor people can do, then think to all those products that now are too expensive but that a future richer society might want. For instance, in Germany (richer country than mine), is very normal to buy local/bio/laborIntensive goods like traditional food and so on, this is all stuff that non educated people can do and will do in the future.

mistermann 12y ago
I generally agree with this, but in some locations an exception to this is real estate, in that a growing subset of the market are becoming increasingly priced out of ever buying anything. Interestingly, the US for the most part is not currently suffering from this due to the bursting of the housing bubble.
- kfk 12y ago
  Yeah, but the thing is, we are not really running out of flats/houses, we are running out of space in the cities. That is a way less bleak future than the parent proposed, it just means that poor people will leave far from the city center, but can we really blame that? Is that even a problem? People leave where they can afford, that's just the reality, as long as they can afford a good house with heating and all the other nice stuff, I think location is not that much of an issue.
  - mtbcoder 12y ago
    Location is a big issue for people who rely on public transportation to get to their places of employment. It's not always feasible to live far away from where the jobs are and not everyone can simply telecommute or otherwise work from home.
danans 12y ago
An area where the poor in the US are frequently worse off than in the past is in access to quality education for their children, which then holds families and communities in multi-generational poverty, and reinforces the trends described in the article. When I was young, a unskilled laborer's child had access to the same or similar quality schools as I did (although I had much bigger advantages in culture by having educated parents). Today, the working poor in the US are often "richer" in shallow ways - they can buy a smartphone and a big TV - but they are less able than ever to afford a good education for their kids, usually because they simply cannot afford a home in a good school district.

by kfk 12y ago

mistermann 12y ago

I generally agree with this, but in some locations an exception to this is real estate, in that a growing subset of the market are becoming increasingly priced out of ever buying anything. Interestingly, the US for the most part is not currently suffering from this due to the bursting of the housing bubble.

kfk 12y ago
Yeah, but the thing is, we are not really running out of flats/houses, we are running out of space in the cities. That is a way less bleak future than the parent proposed, it just means that poor people will leave far from the city center, but can we really blame that? Is that even a problem? People leave where they can afford, that's just the reality, as long as they can afford a good house with heating and all the other nice stuff, I think location is not that much of an issue.
- mtbcoder 12y ago
  Location is a big issue for people who rely on public transportation to get to their places of employment. It's not always feasible to live far away from where the jobs are and not everyone can simply telecommute or otherwise work from home.

danans 12y ago

An area where the poor in the US are frequently worse off than in the past is in access to quality education for their children, which then holds families and communities in multi-generational poverty, and reinforces the trends described in the article. When I was young, a unskilled laborer's child had access to the same or similar quality schools as I did (although I had much bigger advantages in culture by having educated parents). Today, the working poor in the US are often "richer" in shallow ways - they can buy a smartphone and a big TV - but they are less able than ever to afford a good education for their kids, usually because they simply cannot afford a home in a good school district.