Poor Americans often don't understand what it's like to be poor. Spending extended time in a severely damaged third world country absent all security opens all kinds of perspectives.
Gun violence, police brutality, lack of access to food, pest-infested ramshackle housing, lack of access to utilities of every sort (water, power), and poor or little access to education are all things I regularly witnessed or experienced when I was growing up poor in America.
I find generally the people who express what you have simply don't realize how terribly wrong they are.
You know, your comment doesn't really have much to do with the article anyhow. I guarantee you no matter how much "better off" American poors are than some elsewhere, they definitely do not as a rule think those who do have it worse are in their predicament due to their own choices. That is, there's a high degree of overlap, as compared to the relationship between America's poor and its rich/powerful.
https://confrontingpoverty.org/poverty-facts-and-myths/ameri...
I would put forth the First Nations in Canada where many reservations yet have a source of clean drinking water despite gov’ts promises for the last couple of decades to help them with it.
And to compare being poor in the US with the Third World is also shows a lack of knowledge. When you’ve lived in places where the govt will do nothing for you and the only source of relief is the charity of neighbors or NGOs you’d learn to appreciate what America offers.
In your time in the US, did you get a chance to visit the Navajo reservation?
"Tribes without clean water demand an end to decades of US government neglect
US has broken promises as Indigenous Americans lack access to safe water, a crisis worsened by Covid-19"
"An estimated one in 10 Indigenous Americans lack access to safe tap water or basic sanitation..."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/28/indigenous-a....
Please check out this photo-essay on the homeless in Los Angeles.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-03-08/homeless...
What do these folks have that the poor in other countries don't? Food insecurity, outbreaks of disease, living in improvised structures, threat of violence, lack of access to health care are all present in the United States.
Did you get a chance to visit anywhere like the Imperial Valley?
"Two weeks ago, federal prosecutors filed a lawsuit intended to clean up or shut down Duroville, which they said was lacking in necessary permits but plentiful in horrid conditions: defective construction, faulty electrical wiring, unhealthful distribution of drinking water and a deeply flawed septic system. Those ponds of gray.
“The system itself leaks sewage under and around trailers and in common areas,” the government charged in court papers, leading to raw sewage being “tracked into trailers and elsewhere on the feet of residents and their pets.”
But everything about Duroville is hard, just as its name suggests.
It sits on the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indian Reservation, where Mr. Duro is a prominent member. Weary of the news media, he has hired a spokesman, Alan Singer, who stops short of equating Duroville with nirvana, but calls the tales of squalor overblown and racist.
Mr. Singer asks one question, though, that pricks like a cactus: If Duroville is shut down, where will these thousands live?
So far, no answer."
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/us/21land.html
The order of magnitude in numbers may differ, but there is plenty of grinding poverty in the United States.
The more you travel in the United States, the more you realize that it isn't the magical shining city on the hill people think it is.
Clearly not.
I mean, compare the US Gini coefficient with other developed countries.
You could have a higher Gini coefficient but your poor are better off.
When combined with your refutation of the earlier poster's comments regarding the similarity of the poor in the United States to those in the developing world and your statement that the poor in the United States aren't worse off than the poor in other developed countries, it paints an argument that the poor in the United States are somehow in a better position than in other developed countries.
The totality of your statements would be interpreted by a reasonable person as implying that the poor in the United States are better off than in other developed countries.
If your point is simply that the poor in all developed countries are in the same position, and that the poor in the United States are in the same position as the poor in Denmark, that's an interesting take. I mean, you could have just dropped "poverty in the US isn’t unique among developed countries" in the first post where you brought up the First Nations.
I'm just out here trying to have a productive debate with strangers on the internet.
OP said “the poor is the US are the most destitute of any developed country”. I provided an example of similarly destitute poor in Canada, hence disproving his statement.
That’s all.
The bottom percent household income is at $1400 in the US, which puts them slightly below the median in Zambia, Burkina Faso and Benin.
Note, these other countries also have poor! And this is a comparison in dollars, not in standard of living. But it gives a broad idea of the level of poverty some people are dealing with.
Being poor in America is means perhaps having some comforts that are rare even for middle class people in other countries. For example, the home square footage, number of appliances, size of wardrobe, number of cars, etc. But on the other hand, middle class people in a less materially rich country may have government safety nets, accessable health care, higher education, in-demand skills, ability to save and access credit, manageable work hours, and enjoy the social respect that comes with professional careers.
We aren’t talking about people in a wealth/income bracket who have to tighten things up and go from shopping at Whole Foods to Safeway. We’re talking about people who have no economic security. Every financial decision is a trade off about necessities. Living with the very real possibility of losing housing at any time.
So the Dalio quotes in your profile about harsh truths are fine but not helpful here except in that I hope you aren’t too sensitive to hear this truth.
And just on your point, the government has discretion over it's own spending, it didn't need to vote to give people money like in the states. The Australian government can turn on and off the tap when it likes it's not restricted as heavily as you'd think.
It is indeed a choice, and the current poverty and struggle that goes with it is unnecessary.
the opportunities available for things like water and food are enormous compared to where i started
But, poor Americans often don't understand what it's like to be poor, because of the abundance of credit and debt.
I was sobered in Afghanistan about a decade back by the number of economic problems that must be managed in parallel to go from "tough 'hood" to successful country.
On the other hand, we seem to flirt with going the other direction. May we sober up.