Ravenwood - 08/31/05 07:00 AM
The poverty rate increased to 12.7% reports Reuters. But it appears as though white people were the hardest hit.
The poverty rate rose for only one group -- non-Hispanic whites -- which had an 8.6 percent poverty rate for 2004 compared with 8.2 percent in 2003. The poverty rate declined for Asians and remained unchanged for blacks and Hispanics, the report showed.Of course when you look at how poverty is measured, it doesn't seem very relevant. They only count cash income. Non cash benefits (such as subsidies and food stamps) do not count, nor do capital gains. So by this standard if Bill Gates retires and lives off of his $50 Billion without earning any actual cash income, he's considered living in poverty.
What's more "poverty" in this country is the lap of luxury in others. How many poor people own their own home, or their own car? How many own a computer or have cable television? Internet access? I'm not saying there aren't poor people. But some of the so-called poor people in this country would be considered middle-class in Europe.
My father's definition of poor: living off of the produce of your garden, plus fish caught in the creek, rabbits caught with snares, and woodchucks you snuck up on with a rock. (That's how he grew up in the 30's.)
A medieval European peasant's definition of rich: Owning a bit of land so you can keep your own crops, and the right to fish and hunt without getting hanged for poaching.
If you missed the point, what was once "rich" to 90% of humanity now appears desperately poor, much worse than a modern American welfare budget - well, aside from the way welfare families generally cram themselves into places full of criminals and other ne'erdowells.
Posted by: markm at September 1, 2005 12:19 PMGee can you remeber back when we had all that poverty under reagan? but it stopped under clinton? what aload of crap from the liberal liars
Posted by: screaming eagle at September 4, 2005 9:21 PM(c) Ravenwood and Associates, 1990 - 2014
