A journey through a land of extreme poverty: welcome to America

From the article: > His fact-finding mission into the richest nation the world has ever known has led him to investigate the tragedy at its core: the 41 million people who officially live in poverty.

Sounds bad, but that number "officially" leaves out almost all assistance provided by the government to low-income beneficiaries such as food stamps, housing etc. It is a measure of cash income poverty and not a measure of income + government benefits.

It is a misleading metric because you can effectively feed, house, and clothe all those with "poverty" level income and you won't change that poverty statistic at all.

There is plenty of room for discussion on improved social welfare programs but it might be prudent to actually acknowledge the existing benefits before figuring out what to do next.

Back in the day you'd chop down some trees, build yourself a shelter on none's land and live of fishing + farming + hunting. It gets harder (impossible?) to live without assets or ability to make money for someone else hired work. Perhaps if they pooled their efforts?

Liberals and conservatives can take a look at the same data about homelessness and poverty in the US and come to radically different policy conclusions. The liberals say: look at this terrible poverty! We need to raise taxes and provide more social services! The conservatives say: look at this terrible poverty, that still exists in spite of the fact that we spend VAST TRILLIONS of dollars on social services! Apparently the services have nearly zero benefit, so we might as well cut them and lower taxes.

If you think the conservative position is obviously wrong, study Hong Kong and Singapore. They have radically lower taxes than the US (14% and 17% of GDP vs 37% in the US), and yet exceed the US in every dimension of social welfare: better education, health, and infrastructure; lower crime, drug use, poverty and homelessness.

The poverty in the cities is easy to see. But these people have services, unlike the Colonias:

> The majority of these communities have no water infrastructures and lack wastewater or sewage services [3][5] Where sewer systems do exist there are no treatment plants in the area, and untreated wastewater is dumped into arroyos and creeks that flow into the Rio Grande or the Gulf of Mexico.

> More than 2000 colonias are identified within the U.S....

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonia_(United_States)

Even the political articles about 'the wall' refuse to acknowledge this because it is so horrifying. The problem we (Americans) have allowed is far deeper than most anyone realizes.

>> California made a suitable starting point for the UN visit. It epitomizes both the vast wealth generated in the tech boom for the 0.001%, and the resulting surge in housing costs that has sent homelessness soaring.

Or you know, the decades or under-investing in housing and public services that has sent homelessness soaring.

San Francisco, California, 6 December

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/15/america-extr...

Interesting but hypocritical coming from the UK.

Ultimately its a decision by society: safety net or not? I consider homelessness a personal and national insult and would never stand for it. I also pay 21% VAT on everything I buy.

the US leads in inequality

go see Aboriginal communities in Canada and Australia, the story is similar including the substance abuse.

and nations which have rejected wealth polarization like Venezuela are no better off. indeed they simply have eliminated prosperity instead of poverty

Californians like to sneer from some moral high ground as if this is strictly a facet of a right wing society they've tried to "correct", despite the West Coast turning into a Hunger Games world

poverty will be part of the human condition forever. we are not bees, we are apes, it simply isn't in our code to act as a colony

I find something quite difficult to answer. Imagine you have all the political power, and all the money in the world. You are tasked with creating as close to a utopia as you can. Now let's consider a group. Think of those on the top of our society who have a seemingly insatiable drive towards indulgence of drug, drink, and other such harmful vices. In spite of access to the the world's best rehabilitation centers, counseling, and often wide social networks - we not infrequently see these people indulge themselves literally to death. On the bottom of society we also have the same sorts. The only difference is that in this case they tend to be unable to sustain their habit and end up on the streets instead of in a coffin.

How do deal with this problem? I suppose the 'safe' answer is to try to pretend that these people might not exist if we had an otherwise 'better' world, but I think that's improbable. This affliction is something that affects people of all classes in all societies, and has since the advent of civilization. And the reason I focused on the top of society first is that I think they're clear evidence that in some cases you simply cannot counsel or rehab the problem away. And it is those specific cases that a humane solution seems almost impossible to find.