What percentage of Americans are poor?

[GePap]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Pax, you are really wacked out aren't you? Just about everyone is a paycheck away from poverty. Like Kucinich says... it means you have to work. If you take away a paycheck, obviously you won't have any more money.

It's also the 'American Way' - work for your success.

Not everyone is one paycheck away-if you have substantial savings you can survive-if you owe a lot of money then you can't.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Dissident
Have you ever been outside the United States?

Yes. Have you ever been through the United States?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Master Zen
No, all it shows is you have no ****ing clue about how bad poverty is in the third world. I've seen slums in the US, and slums in my country and trust me, there's a HUGE difference.

Then you haven't been to the right American slums, or driven outside the cities.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Sikander


Actually it's the people who claims this who have no idea what third world poverty is like.

No, it just mean you have no idea how bad poverty in the United States gets.

[DanS]

The lady who cleans my house once a day each week for only $6 has a cell phone.

Damn. $6 huh. The going rate in big U.S. cities is about 10-20x that.

My housekeeper has one of those luxury SUVs with leather seats!

[Imran Siddiqui]

I can only conclude that Conservatives value being Rich over being wealthy, so for example it would be beter to have 10 Dollars and everyone else having 1 then for you to have 100 and everyone else 50.

Really that is the only thing that sums it up.

So you think the conservatives would like be 10 times less wealthy if everyone else is 50 times less wealthy? You really need to get a clue.

[Pax]

Originally posted by GePap


Not everyone is one paycheck away-if you have substantial savings you can survive-if you owe a lot of money then you can't.

I'm not saying that everyone is one step away. I said that a good portion of Americans do mnot have substantial savings and job loss would be devastating.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Pax Africanus
I'm not saying that everyone is one step away. I said that a good portion of Americans do mnot have substantial savings and job loss would be devastating.

I don't even know why anyone disputes this. The majority of Americans are one illness away from bankruptcy. This would be hilarious if it weren't so tragic.

I don't understand the mentality of America. Yep, we lazy, no good for nothings. If they didn't threaten us with starvation we'd never work. What kind of way is that to think?

[Jon Miller]

americans work harder than almost every other country

I htink we work aharder than the japanese now

JM

[Al B. Sure!]

jon miller,
i dont understand your leftism. from what you have told me about yourself, you know firsthand that it isnt economics or the capitalist system that is to blame for people being poor but people themselves making stupid decisions such as to have sex and have a baby at 15 or to do drugs. i know you know that if anyone truly cared and truly applied themselves, they will succeed in this country. why would you work hard if this wasn't true?

[DanS]

I think the amount worked is about equal among anglophone countries, with the UK and Ireland at the lower end of the anglophone scale. Americans work about the same amount as the Japanese, Canadians and Australians. The Europeans (ex-UK & Ireland) work a lot less.

Koreans outwork us all by a wide margin, since they just moved from a 6-day workweek to a 5-day workweek on some jobs. South Korea has a 4% poverty rate, even though they don't have much of a social safety net.

[DanS]

With regard to the distribution of income and poverty, I don't think they can be linked so easily as some in this thread have. There are some countries with extremely high poverty rates with relatively level income distribution.

A lot of former communist countries fall into this category. For instance, about 50% of Romanians are in poverty, but income in Romania is spread relatively evenly.

Further, some of the former communist countries have done well and have even distribution of income like the Czech Republic, while others have done well with an uneven distribution of income like Estonia.

[Al B. Sure!]

DanS:

And i believe some just plain poor countries (sub-saharan africa, central america, caribbean) also have pretty level wealth distribution but everyone is poor.

[DanS]

Yes. For instance, Rwanda has a fairly even distribution of income. Bangladesh does too.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Smiley
Darn pessimists. On the flip side, if an American were able to save a month's paycheck and invest it, they'd be on the road to prosperity.

That's why you put aside some from each check. Very few can't afford to put some money in savings.