4 ms·

For the poor, the United States is a far, far worse place to live than Canada. Canada has a comparatively large welfare state, and far better public schools.

by JPKab 12y ago

For the poor, the United States is a far, far worse place to live than Canada. Canada has a comparatively large welfare state, and far better public schools. In the United States, public schools receive the majority of their funding from the local town/county taxes. This means that a poor person who lives in a poor area will attend a bad school. I could go on, but take a look at the data. On basically any metric, the US is a much worse place to be poor than Canada.

dragonwriter 12y ago
> In the United States, public schools receive the majority of their funding from the local town/county taxes. This means that a poor person who lives in a poor area will attend a bad school. The conclusion is true, but the reason given is not true in many parts of the United States: e.g., California (and I don't think California is the only state with similar rules) requires equal per-pupil public spending statewide, so difference in local tax bases within the state do not affect spending (but schools in poor areas have unique challenges that increase costs, and often get less additional support from outside sources to supplement their equalized funding, so they still end up disadvantaged.)