This Just In ...

Just how poor are the poor?

Posted by Kevin Fischer on July 19, 2011

There’s no doubt that in this turbulent period of high unemployment that people are suffering. However, the picture of those defined as poor is misleading.

Just how poor are the poor? You’d be surprised.

A few years ago, Robert Rector wrote a piece for the Heritage Foundation. Here are some excerpts:

“To understand poverty in America, it is important…to look at the actual living conditions of the individuals the government deems to be poor. For most Americans, the word ‘poverty’ suggests destitution: an inability to provide a family with nutritious food, clothing, and reasonable shelter. But only a small number of the 37 million persons classified as ‘poor’ by the Census Bureau fit that description. While real material hardship certainly does occur, it is limited in scope and severity. Most of America's ‘poor’ live in material conditions that would be judged as comfortable or well-off just a few generations ago.

The following are facts about persons defined as ‘poor’ by the Census Bureau, taken from various government reports:

• Forty-three 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.
• Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, in 1970, 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; 31 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.
• Eighty-nine percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and more than 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. While this individual's life is not opulent, it is equally far from the popular images of dire poverty conveyed by the press, liberal activists, and politicians.”


Rector is back with an update.

According to the US Department of Energy, check out what over half of US households defined as “poor” possess:

 

 


America.

Even in the worst of times, it's the best.