Do "poor people" even exist in America?

[Devil'sAdvocate]

"Poor people" in America aren't like poor or starving people in 3rd world countries.

Most "poor people" in America has all of their basic physical needs, food, shelter, etc provided by the taxpayer.

So they're really more similar to prison inmates or slaves than they are to "poor people" historically, they have all their basic needs met, but little personal freedom, and are basically bound to vote for the elected officials who will continue to provide for them since they have no self-sufficient means of support.

[The Xl]

I think it's pretty obvious that Western poor is different than 3rd World poor, in most cases.

[nathanbforrest45]

There are no poor people in the United States, there are only people who have less than others. The OP is correct, the only people who live like the Third World poor are the homeless who are mostly suffering from some mental disorder.

[Chris]

I think it's pretty obvious that Western poor is different than 3rd World poor, in most cases.

I don't know but globally people are rising out of poverty but here in the US, while that was true before the War on Poverty, since then the rate has virtually flat-lined.

https://i.snag.gy/26BrZz.jpg

[Chris]

Poverty is the default condition of man.

[nathanbforrest45]

The number of poor is increasing in this country because we keep raising the bar of what is the "poverty level". At the same time we are putting more and more people in welfare, ssi and other government gimmesh!t programs

[jimmyz]

Abject poverty has been done away with in the USA. Now how do cure the ignorant class?

[Agent Zero]

Unless one's been to every region of our country, it's hard to declare who's poor and who's not; unless the person claiming it is an elitist. I'd say there's parts of Appalachia that would depress a Haitian. As well as some inner cities (yeah...we didn't let all of them become football players!).

Try visiting Beattyville, Kentucky (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/12/beattyville-kentucky-and-americas-poorest-towns), said to be one of the poorest white towns in America.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/12/beattyville-kentucky-and-americas-poorest-townshttps://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/c9e55052cf9869cfcb46602989d4f5247afea025/1836_0_4140_2486/master/4140.jpg?w=300&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&



Karen Jennings patted her heavily made up face, put on a sardonic smile and said she thought she looked good after all she’d been through.
“I was an alcoholic first. I got drunk and fell in the creek and broke my back. Then I got hooked on the painkillers,” the 59-year-old grandmother said.
Over the years, Jennings’ back healed but her addiction to powerful opioids remained. After the prescriptions dried up, she was drawn to the underground drug trade that defines eastern Kentucky (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/kentucky) today as coal, oil and timber once did.
Jennings spoke with startling frankness about her part in a plague gripping the isolated, fading towns dotting this part of Appalachia. Frontier communities steeped in the myth of self-reliance are now blighted by addiction to opioids – “hillbilly heroin” to those who use them. It’s a dependency bound up with economic despair and financed in part by the same welfare system that is staving off economic collapse across much of eastern Kentucky. It’s a crisis that crosses generations.

[Devil'sAdvocate]

Unless one's been to every region of our country, it's hard to declare who's poor and who's not; unless the person claiming it is an elitist. I'd say there's parts of Appalachia that would depress a Haitian. As well as some inner cities (yeah...we didn't let all of them become football players!).

Try visiting Beattyville, Kentucky (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/12/beattyville-kentucky-and-americas-poorest-towns), said to be one of the poorest white towns in America.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/12/beattyville-kentucky-and-americas-poorest-townshttps://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/c9e55052cf9869cfcb46602989d4f5247afea025/1836_0_4140_2486/master/4140.jpg?w=300&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&
That's self-induced poverty caused by drug addiction, not poverty caused by purely external circumstances.

[nathanbforrest45]

Abject poverty has been done away with in the USA. Now how do cure the ignorant class?


Lead in the drinking water??

[Agent Zero]

That's self-induced poverty caused by drug addiction, not poverty caused by purely external circumstances.
Those silly crackers!

[Captain Obvious]

http://api.theweek.com/sites/default/files/Poverty.png