Just how poor are America’s poor?
By Robert W. Pack
Of the 300 million-plus people living in the United States of America, 37 million live at or below the poverty line! This is according to an annual report on poverty released in 2006 by the U.S. Census Bureau, which studied the nation’s standard of living and included various factors related to the population’s daily living conditions.
The realization that more than 12% of U.S. citizens are struggling to survive day to day is used as evidence by politicians, pundits and news organizations to prove that two Americas exist: “the have’s” and “the have not’s.”
Yet certain questions arise: Just how bad have economic conditions become for tens of millions of Americans? How can so many be living below the poverty line? Is there something that can be done?
Before solutions can be proposed, a key question must first be answered and understood: What are the factors used to determine who is poor in America?
Living in Poverty?
In a Jan. 27, 1838, public address, Abraham Lincoln, who later became the 16th President of the United States, stated the following: “We find ourselves in the peaceful possession, of the fairest portion of the earth, as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate…We…found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement or the establishment of them.”
Does this still hold true today—are the American people still the recipients of blessings that Lincoln clearly recognized almost 170 years ago?
The U.S. government derived “poverty thresholds” in 1963-64 to determine levels of economic stress and food budgets for low income families. Today, the poverty index bears little resemblance to what most typically associate with poverty or the poor.
In 2003, for example, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development asked the following question of the general public: “How would you describe being poor in the U.S.?” The vast majority of responses indicated that “homelessness, hunger, not being able to eat ‘properly,’ and not being able to meet basic needs” were criteria for considering someone was “poor.”
In 2006, the Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think tank, conducted a comprehensive and comparative study to determine how the poverty line is defined. Based on research on living conditions reported by those classified as poor, the findings were quite revealing.
One of the clearest and most easily definable factors in determining daily living conditions around the world is whether a person has enough daily food and a minimum quality of food. According to the 2006 Heritage report, “Survey data shows that nutriment density (amount of vitamins, minerals, and protein per kilocalorie of food) does not vary by income class…In reality, government data show that most poor households do not suffer even from temporary food shortages.”
Overall, 98% of U.S. households reported that they always had “enough food to eat” during the past four months (although not always the types of food they would have preferred). Some 1.8% of all households reported they “sometimes” did not have enough food to eat during the previous four months, while only 0.4% said they “often” did not have enough food.
In other words, although a small few of those considered poor reported there were “temporary shortfalls” of food availability, there was no discernable difference in the quality of food available. The only real difference, when compared with those with higher incomes, was in food choices.
Ironically, the biggest problem facing America’s poor is obesity—or over consumption—which is reaching near epidemic proportions.
Also included in the Heritage report findings for those defined as poor:
- 43% own their 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.”
- They have significantly more “living space” than does the average citizen living in affluent international cities such as London, Paris, Vienna and Athens. Only 6% of those living below America’s poverty line reported their living conditions as being “overcrowded.”
Next, consider that most today take pleasure in amenities that were considered luxuries just a generation or two ago.
For instance, of the 37 million labeled “poor” in the U.S., 80% enjoy the comforts of air-conditioning, as opposed to only 36% of the entire population in 1970.
America’s “poor” are also swimming in technology-related goods and services:
- 97% own color televisions (over half have two or more)
- 63% have either cable or satellite access
- Over 99% have refrigerators
- 73% own microwave ovens
- One in three households have automatic dishwashers
- One-third have cell phones, landline phones and telephone answering machines—less than a paltry 10% “survive” without telephone service at all.
- Almost three-quarters own a car and—more surprisingly—over 30% own two cars or more!
These are hardly the difficult conditions most Americans envision when describing the poor. One is left to wonder: Where are the millions of U.S. citizens who are living in “incredible poverty,” as so many politicians and media pundits adamantly assert?
Compared to Other “Developed Countries”
Billions of poor around the world live in conditions that those in Western Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are unable to fully comprehend—from tiny huts on the islands of Indonesia, where people are still struggling to recover from the catastrophic effects of the 2004 tsunami, to war-torn Central Africa, where hundreds of millions struggle daily to find enough—and drinkable—water and food to survive.
However, comparing the daily living conditions of America’s poor to those living in countries of “low human development” (as the United Nations defines them)—commonly referred to as “Third World” nations—is an unfair comparison. A better gauge of the standard of living and blessings that the United States enjoys is to compare it with other “first world” or “high human development” nations, such as Brazil and Russia. For instance, 10% of the Brazilian population does not have access to an improved water source, and only 23% have landline telephones. The UN also found that from 1990 to 2005, 45% of Russian citizens lived on less than $4 per day.
According to the United Nations 2007/2008 Human Development Report, “average” citizens living in many of these countries live well below America’s standard of living for its poor. In general, the homes, cars, food intake and luxury items that the poorest U.S. citizens enjoy are well beyond the levels that average citizens residing in other highly developed nations possess.
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