This is just going to be a short note to share something that I never really realized before.
I was reading interesting articles debating whether the "poverty line" as defined by the US government was an accurate measure of real poverty. It occurred to me that I had no idea what the poverty line actually is.
Well here it is, straight from Uncle Sam: http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/11poverty.shtml
For a single person household like me, it is an annual income of $10,890. I don't know if that is before or after tax, and at that level it probably doesn't matter.
I live in a studio apartment. And it is subsidized, below market rate Univeristy faculty housing at that. So my housing situation is not extravigant by any means - although it is amazingly close to work and amazingly convenient, it is not more expensive than anything else in the area. And my rent is around $1100 per month.
That means that if I made the poverty line level income, I would not be able to purchase one bit of food the entire year! Let alone any medications or doctor co-pays (assuming I had insurance), gas for my car, clothes, or anything else that one needs to live. I would say that qualifies as impoverished.
This tells me that the federal poverty line, and all of the statistics based on it, must be drastically underestimating the amount of poverty in America. Now of course there are vast regional differences in cost of living, but many millions of Americans do live in the expensive large metros.
There must be benefits that the poor receive, such as food stamps, Medicaid, and so on, that function as some additional income. But still. From what I can see the Federal poverty line seems ridiculously low.
Thoughts?
Wow..... Sort of tells a grim tale. Something to think about.
ReplyDeleteI live under the poverty line.
ReplyDeleteSNAP (aka "food stamps") is available for single people to a max of $200 a month in food. No cash is given. You must report income over $1300 gross a month and have your benefits reduced or risk losing all benefits and/or paying back overages.
While I had a "good job" I was on the waiting list for state health coverage - I couldn't afford "good job's" crap coverage with pre-existing conditions - I finally got it after a year. As I am considered "impoverished" my premium is only $9 a month and my covered scripts are free. I have no co-pays at my local doctors. It's decent basic coverage, but I shudder at the thought of something major going wrong.
Now that I have a new job starting soon I will likely lose part of my SNAP based on my pay. My CareOregon premium may rise as well - but I will still be below the poverty line - even working.
I'm on unemployment and don't even qualify for food stamps. (OregonTrail.) Meanwhile, the measly stipend that is unemployment is a fraction of my former income. And at that.... I actually made it work for a while. Now.... not so much.
ReplyDeleteThey really need to revamp the whole definition of poverty, precisely because so low. They also need to take into account regional differences for income tests in general, and not just for poverty. Think, for example, about a family of four earning $50,000 in, say, Omaha, but then you move them to NYC on the same salary.
ReplyDeleteBTW, this is Reuven, as, for some reason, Blogspot is acting up when I try to comment while logged in.
And now, after I comment without logging in, it all of a sudden works again with me logged in. Any computer people that can explain this?
ReplyDeleteThe fundamental problem is that we've got this attitude among those in charge that they're terrified that someone that isn't literally starving and/or freezing to death and that isn't 'deserving' in their eyes might get 'paid for doing nothing.' Until such people are literally horsewhipped out of DC.... or state capitols.... we're going to continue to have a problem. I've got a call in to my unemployment center to see if there's any more benefits available to me, or if I can apply for a new claim when this extension runs out..... and if the answer is no then I've got nine weeks. Period. After that, I'm fucked.
ReplyDeleteI also think a big problem with the whole "workfare" concept is that education is not considered "work." We would be a lot better off if we took that route and gave people transferrable skills instead of just having them dig ditches or pick up garbage along the side of the road. And all I've done is temp work, so I've never even worked long enough in one shot to qualify for unemployment.
ReplyDeleteYeah, go to school and odds are you'll lose your benefits. After all, you have to be ready to take any job offered to you or you're not 'deserving.' If that would fuck with your class schedule? Oh, too bad.
ReplyDeletePennywise and pound foolish. In the short-term it might not mean someone is "working," but, in the long-term, which one will be more beneficial to society and more beneficial to government coiffeurs?
ReplyDeleteDoesn't matter. At least they're not paying someone to not work.
ReplyDeleteThis won't be solved until members of Congress from BOTH parties have to live for a period of time like a poor person in this country. For example, reduce a senator's annual pay to $10,890, and have that senator pay his or her rent or mortgage from that money, without resort to outside funds. And make them buy food out of that same pool of funds, with no access to the subsidized Senate dining room. Make them do this for three months, and we'll have a substantial change in how poor people are treated by the federal government.
ReplyDeleteHell, just have John Boehner and Harry Reid go down to the local welfare office, with no bodyguards or personal aides, and spend the day applying for benefits. Just having to sit in that waiting room with...horror of horrors...minorities, will act as a wake-up call.
Paul.... Great suggestion. I would love to see these guys deal with that bone crushing poverty.
ReplyDeleteThey would dismiss it as being not that much of a hardship - like camp or something - because the reality of the way it grinds you down wouldn't be apparent to them yet.
ReplyDeleteAnd they would cheat.
To be fair to Harry Reid, I believe he grew up in poverty or pretty damn close to it. He worked his way through law school as a Capitol Hill police officer. Boehner, on the other hand, really does need to see what poverty is like. Maybe he can squeeze it in between trips to the tanning bed.
ReplyDeleteIt all reminds me of Nickled and Dimed, that book where a correspondent went 'under cover' as a poorly paid fast food worker.
ReplyDeleteI spend a lot of my mental energy thinking about how much the middle class has gotten screwed in this country over the past decades. And it really is true. When my parents went to college it cost like $100 a year, and you could buy a house for $10000. Those things are now unaffordable to most people. So certainly the middle class has been robbed in favor of the rich.
But if the middle class used to have it good and were robbed, the poor have always had it terrible.
Great discussion. My rent is going up $15 a month with the new year, and this hit me hard when I found out with just one month's notice. Only less than an extra $4 a week, and yet still...
ReplyDeleteAnd I won't even pretend I'm exactly 'poor,' I'm not. Though I'm not well off by any means, either. Paul's suggestions are great, though what would be even better is if we actually sent some people to DC and to the state houses who know what it's like to live hand to mouth, and now. Not forty or fifty years ago. Serious campaign finance reform is the real first step though, if you ask me.
A friend of mine is head of Jewish Family Services in my hometown. Earlier this fall, she did a thing where she (and her kids) tried living on the amount of money they would be eligible for from food stamps. Their goal was to see if they could eat healthy on such a small amount.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was a great exercise, but I wrote to her and told her that there's more than just trying to eat healthy on, say, $300/month. It's also dealing with the bureaucracy to get those benefits -- sitting in the welfare office all day, and then having to justify to someone why you need money to feed your kids. It's the stigma of going to the grocery store and having to stand in line and pay for your food with what is obviously a food stamps card, and everyone in line plus the cashier sees that you're on food stamps. All these little things that make it harder for you to get the benefits you desperately need, and that make you feel like shit for using them.
Sure, the standards as to who is poor, and the standards for eligibility for benefits are absurdly unrealistic. That's kind of an academic argument -- economists can go back and forth. We won't make real progress until our elected officials experience firsthand the grinding humiliation that is part and parcel of being poor in America today.
The having to justify things is awful. They make you jump through fifteen flaming hoops to get the most basic assistance. It's.... kind of like talking to Libertarians.... where they pounce on any possible alternative to giving a shit about another human being. Makes you feel like you need to be literally scrounging through vermin infested dumpsters for table scraps and not finding any before you'll oh so graciously be given any minimal assistance, because you could always move and leave your family behind, or you could switch careers and start all over again from minimum wage, or sell organs, or whatever. Anything so they don't have to contribute anything to society. Anything to make it your fault.
ReplyDeleteI have no shame about whipping out my Oregon Trails card - none at all. I did when I first got it though with my measly $16 a month. OTOH - a large percentage of people in my city have Trails cards too - the stigma isn't there like it was in the days of actual FOOD STAMPS which were horrible.
ReplyDeleteI still get cashiers occasionally complimenting me on my food choices because it is assumed as both male and on Trails - I must be unable to cook and ignorant of healthy cooking.
I have had the occasional buttinski (usually older person) try and tell me I shouldn't be "allowed" to have certain things they deem as "luxuries" when they see a Trails card - but as more and more of them end up on it that will probably become a thing of the past as well. It also varies wildly by old person what is a luxury and what is not.
I'm just so repulsed and resigned to the base, gross and skewed nature of American culture now that I can ignore it or give them a stink eye they will feel for weeks to come - whichever suits my mood. LOL