Poverty in America: Greater Than Statistics Indicate
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
This is really important. There are people that are one paycheck away from not being able to afford rent and basic necessities.
I have lost my job in the past. I was calm and just enjoyed the time while I was looking for a new job. I have money saved. For a lot of people that will have been an extremely stressful situation. That kind of stress is related to bad-decision taking and reduced life expectancy.
I have seen the rise of the credit card in my country. People used to have assets, a modest life and salary increases above inflation.
Nowadays they depend more and more on credits and increase the amount borrowed from their loans. Salaries do not grow, but debt does. That is not a good life at all.
But it's definitely still a gamble.
Edit: 'Only' maybe too strong as there are other scenarios that would work.
This strategy does require strong discipline, but I agree with your parent, I find it is a very useful tool.
Or find one of those credit cards with 0% APR for the first 12 months.
I’m not saying using a credit card instead of savings is a good idea.
It's pretty dangerous to carry credit card debt, because it is so expensive to carry. Lots of folks get into the minimum payment trap, and the debt just keeps growing.
But, even if we frame it as funding a company on credit cards, it was a mistake, and one I would discourage others from making.
Without that phenomenon (the "must get a job very soon / now" mindset), loads of low paid / unskilled positions would just never be filled.
No-one would work crap jobs.
It feels to me like the economy is fundamentally structured around that concept, that most people don't have "FU money" and can't just sit around waiting for better employment situations.
To me, it feels like the alternative, even if you could fix it, would result in eliminating swathes of currently provided services.
Take food delivery as an example - the economics don't work out, because the driver and restauranteur would be paid about as well as the person ordering, or perhaps even more (because it's less desirable work) and it'd be hilariously expensive as a result.
Can we fix it?
Why do you think sweatshops exist?
It's what I see when I look out of my window. That is to say, how I think the economy actually works.
Basically no-one with a meaningful amount of capital takes low end jobs, because they don't have to.
They can sit, read, wait, research, calmly consider, study, and find a way out.
They have negotiating power (which is more than just telling a prospective boss a higher number - it's walking away, doing something else entirely, not even showing up to begin with).
Poor people can't do that, which is why they take jobs that barely pay subsistence. They have no other choice and need to take the job that pays them _now_ with the skills they have _now_.
Fundamentally this is why learning to spend less than you earn is probably the most important thing anyone can ever do. If you ever spend all of your money and have no access to credit, your freedom essentially disappears as you're forced to do almost anything someone with money tells you (legal or not).
With one year no questions asked unemployment benefit, a laid-off delivery person would still be back on the market in a year for the same crappy job (and the same would apply to any skillset - e.g. if there were way more software developers than needed, the same would be true in tech industry)
My dad asked her why she didn't quit and become a garbage man.
She replied: "no way! that's a dirty, disgusting job!"
I see your point. But, in my experience, it is the opposite. I have worked in Sweden and Spain, two very different job markets.
Sweden is way more effective because employees have more rights and more possibilities to look for another job. In Spain, a lot of companies used to be very bad at what they were doing, but were using very cheap labour so they were able to have a profit anyway.
It is the selection of the fittest. When you have abundant cheap labour the most abusive companies succeed. What that is not the case, smart responsible companies have an advantage.
Poverty and stress is not a winning bet.
I can't tell if you're really meaning to say that people down on their luck are there because they deserve it. It's just not that black-and-white.
EDIT: I read this wrong. I agree with what you're saying, "related to" would have made more sense as "leads to".
> Nowadays they depend more and more on credits and increase the amount borrowed from their loans.
Why is this a problem if they can afford to take on the debt? Are you suggesting that debt is evil?
EDIT: Because I misunderstood the first portion, I misunderstood this too - sorry.
People fail, and then there's a downward spiral, because if you're poor you eat bad food and have no time and can't _think_.
That is to say, there wasn't necessarily 'choice' involved (beyond in some cases an initial choice which was made without full vision of the future).
This was my retort, that it's not black-and-white that poor decisions were made and someone is now a missed paycheck away from living on the streets.
Yes. Thank you. "Leads to" is what I meant. :)
Same experience. I was laid off my first job out of college; but I had enough money saved that I basically calmly job searched. Even that was stressful: not having an income is really really bad, couldn't sleep well etc. But if I had to worry about finances too... man, that would suck so bad.
>Psychologist Abraham Maslow believed that safety ranked second only to food and shelter as a basic human need. Someone who has food and a roof over their head today, but doesn’t know whether they will tomorrow, should be considered poor.
I find this premise extremely unsatisfying and non-obvious to say the least. Life is dangerous. There's no such thing as safety. Everyone's going to die, and most of us won't expect it's rapidity.
I am in no way poor, but if I lost my job and couldn't pay my bills, I'd be in trouble very quickly. That's no one's fault but my own and doesn't deserve action from anyone but me.
The only difference in countries with strong Labor laws is that it can't happen arbitrarily and a certain amount of runway is paid out.
Do you at least agree that there are very dangerous places to live, such as war zones? Most people live in safer places than that and it’s a good thing we do.
From there, I’d argue that there’s a spectrum. Living in a war zone or next to a live volcano is extremely dangerous and stressful. But there are other ways to live that are only slightly dangerous, like living somewhere with gang violence, or no health care system, or with no savings. And some people live in areas with very low crime and violence, have good access to health care, and have ample savings or other safety nets. If you’re lucky and/or wise enough to live like that, you’re safer and better off.
Sounds like if you lost your job you could pay the bills. You're running into the difference between what is - for you - a hypothetical and what is for others a reality.
> That's no one's fault but my own
Bu-bu-bu-bullshit! This is completely discounting the role the entire rest of civilization has in producing the context within which you make your choices.
Here's an example: I met a homeless old couple at an encampment once, and they were there because they'd chosen to move out of the Section 8 housing they were in because the building was becoming a drug den. They chose to be homeless but I do not think it is reasonable to say it's "their fault".
I think what you're actually saying is "I don't want any responsibility for other people" which is fine, but realize a) there's a difference between that and someone's situation being their fault, c) a moral judgement by you is inappropriate, and b) "If Everybody Did" then we wouldn't have civilization. Some people need to, do, and should take responsibility for others, and you should disparage neither the needy nor the charitable on those grounds alone.
(Note: If everybody takes all responsibility for everyone else, you get tyranny instead. Balance and diversity!)
Is this really necessary, or the best way to make your point? It really takes away from an otherwise decent post.
Its obviously more complex than that, but I've met a few who don't help much in the former's depiction.
I'm not actually figuring out a non-loaded term to use instead; the next best that I'm finding are the phrases "head so far up your own ass" and "check your privilege", both of which have their own issues.
AFAIK, when people are willfully ignorant of the plight of others, you call bullshit on their crap. Like replying to ad hominem attacks with fallacy ref memes. Anything else is engaging with the trolls. I'll take suggestions, tho.
Otherwise, thanks!
Everyone wants a smart phone, a large television, a game console and a bunch of other junk. But what you want is not necessarily what you can afford.
Now I am not necessarily disagreeing with your point. There are legitimate life needs that people cannot afford (e.g. the tires and car you cited), but nobody needs a $500-$1000 smart phone. Nobody needs a top of the line television, computer, internet connection or subscriptions to all the fancy on-demand media services... and yet by and large American's want these things.
If you happen to live in a city. If you live outside a big metro area, at least in the US, a car absolutely is a necessity.
Where I live, there are no buses, no cabs, no uber, nothing. I don't have children or need to haul large loads frequently, so I might be able to make it work, but it would be a HUGE quality of life hit, necessitating taking a different job nearer me which almost certainly wouldn't pay as well as what I make now, moving closer to work - if I can find anything that's nearby and reasonably priced - and/or spending large amounts of time walking/biking. If I did have children or other dependents, there's just no real way I could expect to not have a car.
It is an absolute necessity for me to have a car and all the costs that entails. I'd rather give up my cell phone than the car.
A $500 phone gets used as an example because it's something people here will buy somewhat often and without much thought but it's missing the point to argue that there are cheaper phones.
My phone cost me $250 (Moto x4) and it's an improvement on my previous $400+ phone (Nexus 6). I could buy a new one nearly every year for the price of making payments on an iPhone.
But people see a top-of-the-line product at a monthly cost they can afford and jump on it, not realizing that they could buy a cheaper option and get much more financial stability, and thus much less stress.
And yes, it's not just phones, but to me it's a symbol of the other decisions you make it life. Nearly everyone I know who complains when payroll is a day or two later than expected has a way nicer phone than me, drives a nicer car, and eats out a ton. I, on the other hand, have a house I can afford, am well above average on retirement, and have enough cash in the bank to survive without a job for several months without touching my investments.
If people realized that they could be out of debt in just a couple years of living more frugally, I'm sure they'd do it. But people just assume they'll be stuck, so they don't even try and spend everything in luxuries now.
The iPhone 7 is $449 and seeing that the 5s from 2013 which is three years older is still supported, worse case you would probably still get three years worth of updates for the 7.
A common thing that I notice with poor people is that they buy bad cars. 15 year old American sedans. That kind of crap. When you can buy a Japanese sedan, use it for 5 years, spend almost nothing on maintenance, and then sell it for most of what you paid for it.
The problem with pay-as-you-go is the interest rates, penalties, fees, etc.
When AT&T or Apple sells me a phone with a monthly payment, I take it because it’s literally the price divided by 24 payments. Zero percent interest. No brainer.
Better debt servicing and better risk assessment and higher trust in buyers would bring down default rates and decrease APY making these programs reasonable and proper. At the extortionate rates necessary due to the extreme default rates and difficulty in collecting payments, they are terrible.
I would consider my neighbors poor. They have state-subsidized rent, for example. They use food stamps. They also smoke a pack a day each. All they need to do to buy a new phone is not smoke for 5 days. Not that it matters, they all have iPhones inexplicably. It's just a viscous self-feeding cycle and I don't know how to help them break out of it.
If you are part of any professional membership or subscription to get you through life, then there are some similarities
The point being that maybe they overspend on conspicuous consumption, using an iphone alone isnt an indicator in isolation. Who knows where the price limit is, but low interest low velocity on phone payments with easy upgrades makes this practical
That's pretty hard to believe.
Seems pretty not-valuable to me.
In fact, I think this is a fantastic reason to avoid iPhones. I'm super excited about the Librem 5[1], and I'll be extra happy to be even that less desirable to these types of people.
The parent comment presumes knowing about these people, what they need, what they should do, and that it's your business to change them. That's a lot of judgment and on very little information.
I also am not a fan of the idea that people in poverty should spend no money on pleasures, that they must live as aesthetes their whole lives - almost as a sort of penance or to prove their dedication. These are people's lives; I hope they enjoy them and I'm certainly not the one to judge them for it.
Also, cigarettes are an appetite suppressant and in many places are cheaper than food. Food stamps are hardly comprehensive. Cheaper, that is, until it all catches up to you medically.
One thing I've learned in my years is how much cheaper life is when you make good money. I can buy healthy food. I can go to the doctor. I can buy shoes and jeans that last. I can properly fix things right when they break. And so on and so on. I pay more upfront to save a ton down the line.
It's inexplicable when there are alternative phones available for 1/10 the cost. Why would you choose to take on a $40/mo expense when you could buy an entire fully functioning low end Android phone for $40?
> And so on and so on. I pay more upfront to save a ton down the line.
But my example is that I'm paying less upfront than my neighbors. They are the ones buying iPhones and name brand cereal with SNAP while I'm over here using cheap phones and eating generic brand cereal. It just seems paradoxical is all I'm saying.
Not if their phone is their only computing device.
name brand cereal
Sometimes when you're struggling, affording yourself some basic pleasures keeps you from giving up entirely.
What if their lives are not very happy, but this one thing makes them happy? Is it worth it then? I would argue yes.
This reminds me of that infamous Fox News talking point: "Look at these people, living in poverty, and yet they still have microwaves in their kitchen! Maybe if they weren't living beyond their means, they wouldn't be in the slums!"
I bet that they'd be happier with a crappier phone when they lose their job and have enough savings to ride out looking for a new one. In fact, they'd probably find a better paying job if they didn't have to take the first one they could land.
The problem with poverty is that many think "that's how life is" and don't realize that they can get out of the cycle. If people in poverty saved just $20 per week, they'd have $1000 in one year, which is nearly a month's pay at minimum wage. $20 per week is likely the amount they spend on "luxury" items, like fast food and a fancy phone bill. In fact, the average cell phone bill for an individual is ~$70, or around $1k per year, and nearly half spend over $100[1]. Having a month's pay in cash means you have that much longer to find a new job, and can withstand emergencies like a broken car that often result in taking on payday loans or the like.
Yes, they probably think that their fancy phone makes them happy, but I think it's quite the opposite because it's increasing the frequency of financial stressors.
The happiest people aren't the ones with the most stuff, but the ones with the most financial stability.
- [1] http://business.time.com/2012/10/18/47-a-month-why-youre-pro...
McDouble is 'cheapest and most nutritious food in human history'
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/10210327/McDouble-i...
That's ~1500 calories/ day for the year buying gas station pizza. It's hard to work when you're hungry.
That's electricity or heat and water for most of a year.
That's a beater to get through a winter.
That's a couple visits to urgent care.
That's cell phone and internet payments for a year.
That's half a deposit on an average apartment.
That's winter tires and months of gas.
How can someone who is unable to think rationally (because they're poor and are at the mercy of capitalists) to keep them homelessness? The reality is terrifying and anyone who can muddle through it without resorting to crime, drug addiction, or being institutionalized is a person of immense strength of mind and character. Arguably stronger and more resourceful people than the multi generational families of inheritance.
What good could $1000 really do for someone?
$1000 to me is insignificant and yet more than half a month's rent. In order to escape this poverty trap I'd need a lot more money, money I'll never have.
Even if I saved as aggressively as possible making sacrifices like eating only the cheapest foods available, buying only second hand clothing, cutting my own hair, biking an hour instead of the 10 minute drive to work, I'd only be able to save $400/mo. An extra $5k/yr at a loss of over half my free time and nearly every empty pleasure in life affords me the ability to what? Spend 8 years getting an outdated associates degree at a community college? I have several friends who did that, currently making more than them with only a HS diploma, yet still dead broke, paycheck to paycheck. Oooh. Maybe 16 years for a bachelor's degree. I'm sure I'll be a desirable applicant in my forties or fifties with entry level skills.
The point is, poor people can't save their way out of poverty like they can't work their way to ceo unless they're actively groomed for better positions. The vast majority of companies are actively removing progression tracked positions and automating the higher skilled positions to further rely on low wage low skill workers that get stuck there. This is a travesty and left unchecked will further the social collapse of this country. You really should get out of your social bubble and interact with middle aged people working minimum wage jobs. You'll find a lot of unlucky but otherwise hard working, honest, reliable, and compassionate people, as well the occasional jerk. Try to get to know the jerk and find out why they're abrasive. Chances are they've had a hard life and their efforts failed to pay off in meaningful ways. Sure some might be truly awful despite having been given every advantage, but those are few and far between.
The difference between a cheap Android and an old iPhone isn't going to be enough to buy a home, or provide food for the family every day, or pay for (or off) an education, or pay for medical expenses, or buy a reliable car, or any of the other truly expensive things that those with wealth take for granted.
Judging the spending habits of the poor on small luxuries is a common way we shift the blame of poverty onto the poor. It allows the rich to feel better about themselves and about the society they've built.
In order to escape poverty, at some point you need to stop thinking and acting like a poor person and start thinking and acting like a middle class person. When and how do you propose that happens? Frugal middle class don't smoke and drink their money away, nor buy top shelf electronics and food products if money is tight. They cut coupons, buy off-brand, save, and invest. At some point, poor people need to be somehow taught these things that we intrinsically know.
Poor people need money, but they need (perhaps even more) education and role models to emulate which is something the government can't easily provide.
It's probably the oldest and most difficult problem to solve in the history of humanity because it requires a large amount of people to be empathetic and charitable with not just their money, but their time.
For some people, whose larger problems are likely unresolvable, small bright spots are the only thing making life somewhat worthwhile.
I've used $40 Android phones, and they're barely usable with modern apps.
Once the battery starts to degrade, which happens quickly, performance drops from barely usable to intermittently usable, with frequent freezing and reboots.
Looking at Sprint.com, iPhones are available for $18 a month.
Do you own a laptop or a workstation?
On the other hand my “luxurious” iPhone 6s I bought in 2015, is still going strong, getting updates, and speed wise, is still faster than most modern Android phones.
You can also be given an iPhone as a gift or hand-me-down. Or decide to keep it instead of selling it when you lose your job or get really sick the rest of your life goes off the rails.
My sense is that people push their financial situation to the limit in order to get more stuff faster. You might say "if they had more money it wouldn't be an issue" but my feeling is that, for most of these people, if they had 20% more money, they'd just find the new limit. I don't necessarily fault this behavior, if the things you're buying make you happy then maybe it's perfectly rational.
But if that's true, it seems nonsensical to define poverty as "precariousness of one's finacial situation". The only definition of poverty that makes sense to me is the material one.
Edit: Thanks for the downvote, stranger. Care to explain?
If you can't afford a 1000 dollar phone, then taking a loan out to buy one is completely illogical. It's a depreciating asset with diminishing returns - a 200 dollar phone does basically all the same things.
The issue is that loans have a psychological effect on some individuals which makes them more like to spend more than they would otherwise. They end up in a sort of situation where wealth doesn't exist at all and all future income is accounted for already.
Then you overpaid for your car.
I know my older son doesn’t have cable or home internet and he uses his phone for everything including entertainment, internet connectivity to his computer, etc.
I’ve known families with children who were going through things and the kids studied on a hand me down laptop and use their phone’s internet access and tethering to do homework.
How long will your $200 phone get updates? How long will it be fast enough to run the latest apps?
If you bought a 32GB 5s in 2015 for $499, you would still be getting updates and it is still as fast as most midrange Android phones. I bought a 64GB iPhone 6s in 2015 for $749 and just recently gave it to my son. It is still going strong, and if history is any guide, it should still get updates for at least another 2 years. It’s also faster in single core performance than any but the highest end Android phones.
https://bgr.com/2015/09/10/iphone-6s-iphone-6-iphone-5s-pric...
Pardon me but I'm a tight-ass when it comes to words / language and how their use effects perception.
In short, (gov) assistance does __not__ decrease poverty. It might sugar coat poverty. It might keep the poverty stricken alive. Etc.
But poverty remains the same. It's there. Alive and well. The level of denial about poverty in the USA is very disheartening.
As a side note. I found the book "Evicted" by Matt Desmond to be extremely insightful. The Poverty Industrial Complex is a powerful force.
Source? I feel as though the equal housing act and low-income housing decrease this definition of poverty by making housing secure.
Like you, I think rent controls and low income rent support are supporting better lives for working poor, and do far more than paint over cracks, but the poverty trap is real: people who can't afford a small payrise because it triggers loss of rental support or food stamps.
Rent controls make their situation worse, not better. [1][2][3][4][5]
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/12/business/economy/rent-con...
[2] https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2015/08/30/...
[3] https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/RentControl.html
[4] https://fee.org/articles/rent-control-advocates-need-a-lesso...
[5] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-01-18/yup-re...
This is actually the one issue I've seen that consistently wins over the "Well, why don't they just get a (better) job?" crowd to supporting a higher limit, or a more varied limit, to benefits. Why would someone get a full-time job if doing so would leave them homeless and starving because they're now above getting any help whatsoever.
We usually disagree on the solutions, but at least they come to see it's a lot more nuanced than just down to the people on welfare being lazy, which is a start.
- drug war
- justice system
- housing projects
- welfare gap
It is based off of earning a percentage of median income by county (or maybe zip code).
The four horsemen of housing cost:
- rent control
- NIMBYism
- zoning
- "affordable housing first!!!"
That aside, to answer your interpretation of my statement, I would sight the article as a starter source.
Now, if your point is that the gov't payments don't actually solve the underlying issue, that I would agree with.
My point is that once you start just giving money away - you shift to the early Massachusetts model...which leads to poverty and starvation. Even the most moral of men (can you argue that early puritans were more focused on morality than us?) will fail under a system that rewards sloth.
And I say this as somebody on the right.
This is why we (here in the US) need to address housing. And I don't know what term to use. "Affordable housing" is the term I want to default to, but that gets misinterpreted by people and ends up being a pointless argument where we talk at cross purposes.
Historically, we had more housing appropriate for single people with not much income and childless couples with not much income, etc. We largely eliminated those options as we defaulted to a standardized expectation of a family home designed for a nuclear family and the footprint of such homes has more than doubled since the 1950s. Meanwhile, the average size of the actual nuclear family in the US has shrunk as we are having fewer kids and, simultaneously, our population has diversified away from the nuclear family towards more single people, childless couples, single parents, etc.
It also used to be more feasible to live without a car in the US. Now, we default to assuming you drive and own a car. That is in the process of changing, but it is still a pretty standard assumption baked into residential construction. Some US cities are starting to loosen parking requirements for rentals near transit stations, among other things. But we still mostly assume that you drive, you own your own car and you don't object overly much to driving fairly long distances for daily essentials like getting to work and doing the grocery shopping.
I don't have a term for the kind of housing that doesn't default to assuming you are part of a nuclear family with at least two cars. I don't know of anyone inventing terms for an alternate concept here.
But this is part of why we have terrible housing insecurity in the US. From what I gather, other countries tend to be better about having housing available that isn't a terrible burden to some large subsection of it's population -- ie everyone who isn't part of a nuclear family with either a very well paid head of household or a two career couple situation (and I say career, not job, to try to evoke something that probably pays better than minimum wage, has benefits, etc.).
Of course there are limits. Everybody has a point where their house is big enough for them and there are no better areas to move to (or the better areas are out of reach). Then they improve it for lack of anything else to to with their money.
[1] https://www.which.co.uk/news/2018/04/shrinking-homes-the-ave...
He also suggested a tax on rent as one of the best ways to tax, since it ends up being paid by the landlord.
"A place to live" is only elastic in the number of people that want to live there. Right now more people want to live in cities than there are places in cities (particularly well built, noise and odd smell insulated places), so even though the quality of housing is lower than alternatives the cost to rent or buy is not reflective of that lack in quality.
The cost of building, in terms of land, approvals, delays in construction, etc is also not favorable.
At least to me as an outside observer, it seems EXTREMELY LIKELY that the 'market' is misaligned to the needs of the people and in need of a deep systemic overhaul including a review of regulations that encourage / discourage various activities.
Plenty of people will advocate for ensuring that there is plenty of affordable housing, but as soon as prices actually go down and homes become more affordable it's as if the sky is falling. It makes sense given there are millions of people whose net worth/retirement/future stability is tied up in the long term growth in the paper value of their houses, but it's a tough problem to solve from a policy point of view.
This is still possible. Obstacles like large interstate highways are no worse than obstacles like large unbridged rivers. Not many people will tolerate it.
I generally agree, but this has potential downsides. A good friend of mine from college comes from a very conservative family. Despite doing well for themselves (father is a MD), these people are generally pretty insecure about non-whites having the ability to vote, immigration (legal or illegal), and all the other things they hear on Fox News or talk radio. They also own a home > $1million USD.
So do we consider them poor because they're insecure?
I guess my point is there should be some objective measure - e.g. Person A or Family B is more likely to become homeless if they lost their jobs or if one family member became disabled.
But agree with your sentiment. Insecurity in general is a very loose term. Some people are prone to believe the sky is falling and there's little that government can do to rectify that.
Actually they are, and go so far as to pass laws specifically to suppress non-white votes https://twitter.com/haroldpollack/status/1051657219899617280
Wow. Can't be racial prejudice if its already political prejudice.
Reminds me of the court scene in New Jack City where the Wesley Snipes confesses to being a foot soldier and therefore he can't be the kingpin.
It can, but it's not in many cases. I also know lots of conservatives who are not the strawman racists people on the left like to attack. They really only care that people don't vote in left-wing people.
Keep in mind that suppressing the Democrat vote will dis-proportionally affect black people (as well as poor people, etc), but that doesn't mean the people trying to do it are prejudiced against black people. They are just prejudiced against Democrats.
Voter suppression should be a universal bad in a democracy no? It’s not only bad when done for racist ends.
The State's argument was voting hours were inconsistent across the state. The districts that offered additional voting opportunities, that other districts did not have, were predominantly African American and would vote Democratic.
So their answer was to ban Sunday voting so that every district had the same window of opportunity to vote.
One could argue that their solution wasn't the optimal one, but they were aiming to level the playing field.
"The officials also urged county election boards to open fewer sites for residents to cast ballots during early voting that began on Oct. 20 and ends on Saturday."
Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-northcarolin...
The reason inconsistencies existed is because there was a coordinated campaign in 2016 that made the holdouts appear inconsistent.
This is classic voter suppression. There will always be different voting patterns among different groups. Identifying the patterns of your preferred group and then normalizing just those patterns is how suppression is accomplished, period.
What blows my mind is that Republicans have been discussing these strategies freely and openly for years, and yet for some reason people still feel compelled to believe post hoc rationalizations.
The Republican Party is morally bankrupt. America is an intrinsically conservative nation and conservatism will live on. But apologizing for the Republican Party and its politics... I find it inexcusable.
I would argue creating special voting opportunities (i.e. Sunday voting) that directly appeal to the people who vote for you is morally bankrupt.
"The data also showed that black voters were more likely to make use of early voting — particularly the first seven days out of North Carolina's 17-day voting period. So lawmakers eliminated these seven days of voting. 'After receipt of this racial data, the General Assembly amended the bill to eliminate the first week of early voting, shortening the total early voting period from seventeen to ten days,' the court found."
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/29/the-s...
This isn't even one of those issues where one can employ whataboutism. The motivations and behaviors are express, unambiguous, and unilateral.
It's one thing to be concerned about voter fraud and fairness. But when one group selects solutions out of a large basket of potential solutions that not only happen to consistently disadvantage a particular group but are express in their motivations.... I mean, come on. How many of these Republican states have thought about improving ballot audits? Just today Paul Ryan made a comment about how California's voting rules were too susceptible to voter fraud, but they fail to mention that California actually has very robust auditing processes and continues to improve them. And, notably, the pro-immigrant camps aren't crying foul.
Suppose you roll out a new voting schedule expanding voting hours. The purpose is to make things more convenient, not affect election outcomes -- someone who might have had to miss an hour of work to vote can now do it during off hours instead etc. But without having any way to know this ahead of time, the new schedule turns out to change who votes in a way that disproportionately benefits one party over the other. What should be done?
There is no logical reason for one schedule to be more fair than another, assuming that everyone has a reasonable opportunity to vote in both cases and the difference is only a matter of convenience. The problem is that convenience can affect election outcomes -- and there are arbitrarily many possible schedules.
Suppose that increasing voting hours at certain other times (e.g. opening polls earlier in the morning) would benefit Republicans more than Democrats. If they did that instead of removing the hours that disproportionately benefited Democrats, you could accuse them of the same thing -- changing the schedule to affect the outcome. But they're also just restoring the original balance that existed before a change was made that wasn't expected to alter it but did. On the other hand, who is to say that the original status quo is more fair than some other thing?
And that's the problem. Nobody has any more right to slightly more convenient voting hours than anyone else, but who gets them can determine the election. The incumbents are the ones who get to make the decision, so what would you expect them to do? More importantly, what principled thing do you propose to do instead?
In theory they could allow voting 24 hours a day for a month, but the expense of that likely exceeds the marginal benefit. Meanwhile as soon as you start deciding which hours to cut, you're potentially choosing who wins the election again.
That's exactly (well, perhaps not exactly a month) what places that adopt all mail-in (or just permanent, no-special-qualification mail-in) voting do, so it's not just “in theory”.
Every ballot is a mail in ballot.
~4 weeks before the election that thing arrives, I spend a few hours the next weekend going over the choices I didn't already evaluate in the primary before the election, and I drop that thing off like a hot potato as I ignore the political ads.
Everyone should have mail in ballots and as much time as they need to fill it out.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2018/11/...
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=simpsons+fox+news+helicopter...
Civil Liberties organization defends due process. "I'm not saying they're rapists, I'm just saying rapists like them a lot."
Fertilizer company sells ordinary fertilizer that happens to be a major component of large bombs. "I'm not saying they're terrorists, I'm just saying terrorists like them a lot."
Tech company protects privacy of customers. "I'm not saying they're child pornographers, I'm just saying child pornographers like them a lot."
This form of argument is obviously more incendiary than illuminating.
Only in a loose, meaningless sense of the word that doesn't really tie to most conservatives in the US. Many conservatives in the US want to change structures of society, particularly WRT how much the government is involved.
>these structures are racially determined - it is just part of the history of the country
Not really. A poor white immigrant is just as disadvantaged by current laws as a poor black immigrant. Money is the #1 indicator of how hard you are going to have it in the US.
>Therefore, conservative policies will tend to maintain racial discrimination
No, they will tend to discriminate against low-income people. A larger portion of black people are low-income so people who are into identity-politics will intentionally confuse this and claim the policy is designed to hurt black people.
Even this is disputed. The conservative argument is that existing regulations make it more difficult to operate a business, so more of the people who would otherwise have their own small business are stuck working a dead end job for someone else, or are unemployed because the small business they would have worked at was destroyed.
Better for the same person to have a $60,000/year job than a $30,000/year job plus $15,000 in government assistance.
They're not really "angry" that LGBT folks, Hispanics, and Muslims are able to vote, for example. A better way to think of it is that the root cause is fear. Does that result in anger? Sometimes... but they're insecure insofar as they believe their way of life, their financial independence, and their freedom is on the verge of being taken away. They see prosperity and opportunity as a zero sum game where the Hispanics are here to either not work at all and force the whites to pay for them and the ones that are willing to work are only stealing the opportunity from the "real Americans".
Before you respond - this isn't a topic of debate.
I mean, I'm revealing conversations I've had with these people over dinner in their home. This is what they believe, from their own mouths.
At the end of the day, these are people who I consider family, even though I almost violently disagree with their views and believe they have been brainwashed.
For the former: If their fear/insecurity is causing them to pay more than they could/should afford in bunkers, security guards, etc, then I would say according to the article: "Yes".
But that's true for almost no one in the demographic you're highlighting.
For the latter: If immigration (legal/illegal) keeps continuing, or other demographics gain more voting power, will they likely lose that $1M house? I don't think so.
Also, you don't have to bring the neighbors into it, or income inequality to find it an inadequate measure. Just ask: why not housing? Simple - administrations want housing prices to rise, because housing is an investment.
At least it's tied to something. World poverty measures are just arbitrary absolute amounts that have no choice but to decline every year.
There are non-cynical reasons. It's not clear that optimizing for housing will work consistently. If many instances of poverty are caused by addiction, mental illness, corruption, or exploitation, it's not clear just throwing free apartments into the mix would address what we mean by "poverty".
Treating poverty as a disease to be palliated is an observable failure. The US alone has spent trillions of dollars since the won reducing poverty and all we have to show for it is a greater poverty rate than ever. I don't see how a free society can force its citizens to behave prudently, but I'd love to hear some ideas.
For those who are inclined to knee-jerk disagree, please realize none of this means we shouldn't have a social safety net. Sometimes bad things happen, from involuntary unemployment, to disability, or natural disaster. Various forms of effective net cash-flow assistance can be a great help to everyone, financially prudent or not.
Anyhow this problem is older than dirt, there's even an Aesop about it. Any successful approach is going to require a willingness to learn from failure.
[1]https://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2016/01/why_do_...
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/24vo34/whats_the...
It absolutely is a cause, of many things, including more poverty. In the US, the largest determiner of a child's future socioeconomic status is her parent's wealth.
Whether a disease model is the best one to use is arguable, but blanket denial that poverty is a primary cause of much social disruption, dysfunction, and lack of economic achievement is just nonsense.
I don't deny the possible existence of a negative feedback loop, but I don't consider it to be a settled matter either. It could be poverty causing more poverty, or it could just be that the original causes still obtain and thus poverty persists.
As for parental wealth, well you'd be hard-pressed to find any trait in a child that isn't statistically more likely when their parents possess it. Are we to address poverty by forcing people to procreate by lottery?
You are being disingenuous by trying to argue that wealth is a genetically heritable trait. I don't think you're actually even engaging in honest debate here, just doing the standard right-wing gish gallop of disinformation and distraction. This applies to all of your comment, not just the above.
Noted and ignored.
The rest of parent (and subsequent replies by same) is clearly undeserving of a response.
You make my original point for me.
For example, the opinion that successful people make decisions X, Y, and Z and unsuccessful people don’t is a very attractive intuition. Yet, it’s very difficult to support without broad longitudinal data. And, even then, how do you control for the many other factors, especially ones that change over time?
So, consider your observation that poor people are worse and rich people better (at making decisions). How do you know if there’s survivorship bias at work? That is, without taking a population at birth and requiring them to make ‘the good decisions’ throughout their lives, how do you actually know?
Did you read the part of the comment about people going broke who are high-income or receive windfalls?
Poor money-management exists across all income bands and starting savings levels.
Here are a couple examples.
Conventional wisdom 30 years ago said that a “good decision” was to graduate high school and get a manufacturing job. A “not so good decision” was to get a degree in computer science. There’s big a reason why ‘nerd’ back then was an offensive term. And, ‘only nerds’ went into compsci, and they didn’t even make much money (compared to, say, a business degree). But, look which decision was better after a few decades.
Another example is education, in general. In 1990, everyone was saying that college was the best thing a kid could do to get into the upper middle class. Data showed that any degree would significantly increase wealth over a lifetime. But, yet, just 15 years later, that decision wasn’t so great.
I think the numbers in this article are right. Over the past 75 years, relative poverty has grown at a dramatic pace. Sure, everyone's quality of life has improved across the board but relative poverty is the important metric.
In the past 15 years more and more of a household income is tied up in basic needs; bills and rent/mortgages are consuming higher percentages of net income, outpacing inflation. More of the real purchasing power is going into the pockets of a few. Most people in the US economy are being squeezed and we seem to be approaching a point where there isn't much left to squeeze.
Hypothetical: there exists a figure of relative poverty where many folk will stop playing the capitalist game and instead seek alternative ways of organizing an economy.
I speculate that we're approaching that relative poverty figure and that can possibly explain why many people want to socialize wealth. For example, many people I know with $50,000+ in student debt want other people to pay for it. How many other debts would people want to have others pay for? How many recurring expenses would people want others to subsidize?
I think the source of the problem seems to be lack of entrepreneurial activities compared to the past. With all the squeezing experienced there are some folks in the population that aren't taking a risk in starting a business that would otherwise. The amount of risk one has to take on is higher as well due to regulation and having to buy politicians. Increasing the amount of competition would be an ideal way of "redistributing" wealth.
I completely disagree — the total standard of living is the only one that matters. If you’re better off than you used to be, you’ll keep buying into society and things will keep getting better.
I think there’s four factors:
1. It’s hard to view your status in absolute instead of relative terms, because it requires historical context, so most people misuse relative poverty as a proxy for absolute poverty.
2. People have capitalized on that misperception to advance their political agendas, causing increased civil tensions.
3. There are many unaccounted for things in applied economic models, and their scale could easily call into question our broader choices — and people are routinely told to shut up and stop talking about it. (I usually quip that we have financial architecture, but not financial engineering.)
4. People are afraid that the spread in relative poverty will be used to extort wealth until they’re forced back into absolute poverty — which there are signs of happening.
I agree with your conclusion, broadly. The fix to relative poverty is changing market dynamics so that small businesses are more viable while colossal ones are less so.
~~It is hardly sufficient to simply say that this outrageous claim requires enormous proof. Please, show me the billionaires who have been forced in to poverty by social program. Please.~~
Edit: I was misreading the above in exactly the wrong direction, wealth-wise.
There is indeed quite a bit of evidence that the economic system, as a whole, is evolving to extract every single dollar of wealth from the lower classes, primarily transferring it to the top class. Health care (especially end-of-life), education, and wage stagnation vs productivity gains are the prime examples.
I still think it's fair to ask for evidence on the "signs of happening" part...
I was with you until the very last part. Business counts are not zero sum and more often than not a rising tide lifts all boats, dinghies and yachts alike. The ills of colossal businesses can be debated in other areas, but not as a direct relation to poverty or at least not without including the benefits they provide.
The broader question is what sort of society do we collectively want?
That part of the Bible also establishes a government funded priesthood consisting of only men that routinely perform ritual animal sacrifice. Point being, the jubilee year stuff was specific instructions on how to govern a particular people in a particular place at a particular time in history.
Now, I would consider guaranteed loan forgiveness after, say, seven years, but that would probably just reconfigure how loans are structured. I figure people would get smaller mortgages, having to buy smaller houses with larger down payments. I'm not sure that's better for the poor than what we have now. Maybe it would be? The adjustment would certainly strain the economy while the housing sector sorted itself out.
The commandment against murder clearly doesn't have the same context as the instructions for how to dress temple priests. It's not selective reading to consider the text in context. It doesn't require a deist belief either.
If you give the entire world credit for the advancements in China. I'd say instead that China is doing really well, and everyone else is doing about the same.
edit: lmao please explain the downvotes
[1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-...
You'll find Jamaica, Syria, Guatemala, Pakistan, Venezuela, Iraq, Egypt, Mexico, Kenya, and a whole host of countries that are far poorer off than USA but have much lower suicide rates. You'll also notice that Japan and South Korea are higher than ours. Why is that? Poverty or economic hardship is not a predictive indicator of suicide.
Sure, millennials had to come of age during the big recession of 2008, but the economy has largely recovered...and graduates today have excellent employment opportunities.