Wealthy America?!?

[alpha]

- Forty-six percent of all "poor households" actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.

- Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

- Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.

- The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)

- Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars.

- Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.

- Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.

- Seventy-three percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.

“Overall, the typical American defined as poor by the government has a car, air conditioning, a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave. He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His home is in good repair and is not overcrowded. By his own report, his family is not hungry and he had sufficient funds in the past year to meet his family's essential needs.”


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“ In good economic times or bad , the typical poor family with children is supported by only 800 hours of work during a year. (emphasis added) That amounts to 16 hours of work per week.”
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Source: Robert E. Rector and Kirk A. Johnson, Ph.D. “Understanding Poverty in America”, The Heritage Foundation, http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/bg1713.cfm

Damn! I wish I was a poor man in America

I am curious to know what any Americans think of these stats. A few people I know that have been to the US tell me that its portrayal in movies is inaccurate and that some places are as bad as in India.

[Busyman]

I disagree.
I've been in some shitty inner city parts and the living conditions are not THAT bad.
Granted there are exceptions and I can't speak about parts outside the Metropolitan areas.

There are programs which allow a person of lower income to purchase a home with "special" rates and/or elimination of certain fees.

Basically it's sort of a reverse handicapping system or like being graded on a curve.

[MagicNakor]

I'm not in the United States (although I've spent a fair bit of time there), but a fair chunk of it seems to be rubbish, with the exception of point four, but only because the United States is quite a bit larger than most European countries, thus giving more space to people.

Something else to consider would be the debt load people are living under. Mortgages, car payments, utility bills, medical bills and other payment plan options aren't considered in those statistics.

Those averages don't count for too much (in the description of the housing situation), because there are "castles" in the United States, which are really going to push that average up. They also don't count for much in the work-week-length average, unless this is completely discounting the "working poor," a often-neglected and rather large chunk of society.

I don't know what The Heritage Foundation is, but it seems pretty right-wing to me. Then I go check the About Us page...maybe I shouldn't write and read at the same time.

[alpha]

MagicNakor: the United States is quite a bit larger than most European countries, thus giving more space to people.

That doesn’t matter. Density of population is relevant not land area.

[alpha]

Something else to consider would be the debt load people are living under. Mortgages, car payments, utility bills, medical bills and other payment plan options aren't considered in those statistics.

I think you didnt read it through before posting

". Some 70 percent of poor households report that during the course of the past year they were able to meet "all essential expenses," including mortgage, rent, utility bills, and important medical care.30 (See Chart 5.)



However, two caveats should be applied to this generally optimistic picture. First, many poor families have difficulty paying their regular bills and must scramble to make ends meet. For example, around one-quarter of poor families are late in paying the rent or utility bills at some point during the year."

[MagicNakor]

Population density is directly related to land area. It's the number of people per square mile. If you want an analogy: twenty people in an elevator is quite crowded. Twenty people in a ballroom is a little sparse.

You can easily rack up debt and be "able to meet essential expenses." Credit card debt, for example, doesn't have to be paid off in any forseeable time frame. And if someone's paying the absolute minimum to keep the creditors at bay, they'll have been considered to have paid their bills. With the average credit card debt is $8,940, and making minimum payments, they'll be in debt for 89.4 years, assuming that nothing else is charged. "Scrambling to make ends meet" is certainly no way to live.

[ilw]

Originally posted by alpha@31 March 2004 - 07:56
- The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)

thats such a crap statistic, its comparing 'poor' people (probably many of them rural) with some of the most expensive places to live on the planet. A 3 bedroom house in paris or london could probably buy a couple of streets of cheap, but spacious rural houses. Also the statistic specifies living space, so i'm betting they include gardens and property, ie entire farms, that much land in a city isn't feasible no matter how rich you are. I bet the statistic could easily have compared the average poor person to any heavily built up city in America and found the same thing. All the statistic shows is that rural people actually have more living space than inner city dwellers, its not specific to America, its common sense. The statistic is so heavily skewed by the comparision of urban to rural that the relative sizes of Europe nad America and popuulation density don't even come into it imo. If you compared the size of 'poor' peoples houses in America and Europe i'm sure you would still find American houses bigger and that may have been of some interest and the relative sizes of the countries etc may be of some importance, but comparing cities to rednecks?
Other than that, it was quite interesting, whats the definition of 'poor' in America?

[Busyman]

Originally posted by MagicNakor@31 March 2004 - 05:57
Population density is directly related to land area. It's the number of people per square mile. If you want an analogy: twenty people in an elevator is quite crowded. Twenty people in a ballroom is a little sparse.

That is absolutely incorrect.

Metropolitan areas are densely populated in a small area.
The midwest for example is a large land mass with sparse population.

Population density is directly related to businesses and jobs.

edit: oh yea and alot of fucking.

[ang3968]

Originally posted by alpha@31 March 2004 - 17:56
- Forty-six percent of all "poor households" actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.

is that actually own debt free or have a mortgage....

I'm curious as to how they come up with that figure.....

I say I own my own home but in reality the bank owns half of it, and will do for another 6 yrs or so...

[Barbarossa]

...and also, how can you have half a bath??? What use is half a bath anyway, all the water will run away...