“As early as 2010, 43% of all poor households owned 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. Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning. The typical poor American has more living space than the average non-poor individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens and other cities throughout Europe. Ninety-seven percent of poor households have one or more color televisions — half of which are connected to cable, satellite or a streaming service. Some 82% of poor families have one or more smartphones. Eighty-nine percent own microwave ovens and more than a third have an automatic dishwasher. Most poor families have a car or truck and 43% own two or more vehicles.” – Walter E. Williams
The Editors’ Quote of the Day:
I’m curious, in 2010, the “poverty” level was $20050.00 for a family of four. I could not find any statistics on what constitutes “poor” by the census.
I used to work in Section 8 housing in a major metropolitan area. Make no mistake, the people there were not living affluent lives.
I don’t think you can even buy black and white televisions anymore, so the quote is as relevant as saying that 98% of poor people drink water.
What the statistics are really referencing is the working suburban/ rural poor.
Let me say what we all know is true but choose not to say out loud. 95% of people in section 8 housing have more than adequate income but choose, drugs, alcohol, tobacco and tats over a budget. THAT is why we as taxpayers have to support them NOT because they just can’t make it. Further more the welfare system requires that recipients stay ‘poor’ or they will be kicked off the gravy train so the few ‘poor’ on welfare who choose to earn money choose to do so under the table so that their income is not known. Section 8 housing is a scam on the taxpayers and should be ended. Ditto for all welfare. It is time to sink or swim.
Sounds suspiciously xenophobic and rascist. My guess is this person has not experienced rascism or lived in poverty. Likely one of approximately 25% of Americans who crave an authoritarian state where they can continue to live under the cloak of being protected from the “other”. Self righteousness and entitlement run strong in this segment of our society.
I’m not looking to call anyone xenophobic or racist. It just confuses me that poverty is seen as a uniquely urban phenomenon.
The most useful thing the quote could have provided would have been the actual threshold considered for poverty, which as noted below varies. I have a sneaking suspicion that many of us here are included in the definition without knowing it.
The locusts will ‘swim’ by quickly expanding their organizations into suburbia.
As soon as the locusts experience their first suburban ‘sink’ events, they rapidly expand into small towns.
Adapting faster by that point, the locusts quickly expand again, this time devouring isolated farms, ranches, commuter hobby-farms, and anybody with the word ‘peace-loving’ or ‘hippie’ in their name.
Each locust surviving any prior ‘sink’ events is the most adaptable… the quickest to learn by the mistakes of less-adaptable — dumber braver — locusts.
This is inevitable.
Darwin states this constant conflict:
* Survival of the fastest to adapt.
The corollary:
* Survival of the fastest to reproduce.
Defenders, relying on laws and ethics and ‘the brotherhood of humanity’, are slower to adapt and are easily destroyed.
Meanwhile, during their genocide, less-adaptable/non-adaptive defenders may wonder about the locust ability to reproduce multiple generations as soon as locust females enter their prime reproductive years… generally at the age of twelve or thirteen.
The facts may be difficult to accept; this conflict is graded only with a ‘pass/fail’ for every minute of every day.
Why?
The defenders were acclimated to an 8-5 workday with weekends off.
The defenders believed the uneasy truce with the locusts would continue, all evidence to the contrary.
The term ‘fittest’ applies here — the losers in the upcoming skirmishes were not evolutionarily fit to continue.
And earth abides.
and your proof is?
ThoDan, I could be mistaken, but I believe this is from the novel, Earth Abides. From Wikipedia: “Earth Abides is a 1949 post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by American writer George R. Stewart. The novel tells the story of the fall of civilization from deadly disease and the emergence of a new culture with simpler tools. The story is set in the United States in the 1940s in Berkeley, California and told by a character, Isherwood Williams, who emerges from isolation in the mountains to find almost everyone dead.”
A book I haven’t read as yet, much to my chagrin.
Unfortunately the Congress has seen fit to index many social program eligibility levels to one and a half to two times the “poverty level”. In many states the equivalent value of public assistance and the associated programs are worth about $45K per year. Why work?
The social programs are supposed to be assistance, in fact they’re a living for many.