There is a problem with the definition of “poor” which is being used to fan the flames of class warfare.
The definition or the poverty line by the Department of Health and Human Services is $22,000 for an urban family of four. This definition overlooks a major reality: that income does not define how well-off you are, but rather consumption does.
When they calculate the $22,000, they do not include the earned-income credit, Medicaid, food stamps, and other federal and local government subsidies. This means that the $22,000 is not consumption, and people at this level actually have a much higher consumption.
Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation wrote a report titled “How Poor Are America’s Poor?”. In this report he notes the following about the so-called “poor”:
– 43 percent own their own homes
– two-thirds of America’s poor have more living space than the “average” (not poor) living in Paris, London, Vienna and other European cities
– 80 percent have air conditioning
– three-quarters have a car, with 30 percent having more than one car
– 97 percent have a color TV, more than half with more than one TV, and 62 percent have cable or satellite
– 89 percent have a microwave, and more than a third have an automatic dishwasher
Another discussion of this topic is on Sean Hannity’s website, where there is a related quote from the Economist: Poverty ‘Eliminated’ in US
You can see from the above that “poor” no longer refers to a level of subsistence, but only to a relative level compared to the rest of a rich society.
I submit if you want to see “poor”, look to the less developed world. Most of America’s poor are clearly rich compared to these societies.
Or if you like to read history, here is another comparison which makes the same point: today’s poor are much richer than the aristocracy of 500 years ago when their standard of living is examined, which includes the quality of food, housing, medical care and so on.
So “poor” in the modern context has been transformed into a euphemism to express class resentment.