Let the Good Times Roll: 1 Million More Americans in Poverty in 2004

[Mrs. Tuberski]

Originally posted by notyoueither

The majority of the poor are military families? I did not know that. Can you share your research?

One example i can give is i have a bro in law in the navy he has a wife and two kids. ready to retire in 3 years, he is making less then my husband that has been on his job for 5 years. And to be honest the job descriptions are almost the same. and my bro in law has been inthe military for almost 20 years and still makes less a year the tubers

Less than Tubers is poverty?

where in the hell did u get that from???

Poly is great!

It is and i am surprised u didnt take responsibilty for ur own quote, but rather you make it look like it was mine great job take ur troll and stuff it

[notyoueither]

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Mrs. Tuberski

wouldnt you try to assume that a person in the military doing the same job for 18 years would have had a few raises??

Irrelevant.

this man has been making this amount for the last 7 years and all the while the cost of living goes up which is what i was saying about the military families living on the poverty line.

No. You said:

And if u do research the majority living in poverty are military families.

I mentioned tubers as an example for the folks that work the same job else where that have recieved raises throught the tenure of employment and are not living at that line., but then again he is not alone becasue he is married to me and with my income we make enough to feed the kids and live

Unfortunately, you did not say that.

You mentioned the bro in law who made less than Tubes as an example of 'the majority living in poverty are military families.'

[notyoueither]

Is Tubes' brother the limit of your research?

[Mrs. Tuberski]

no he is not... and as i told you earlier id get ur resaerch where this was writen, but like hell i am gonna do it tonight. as for me its 1 am and i am not that ****ing dedicated at the moment.

[notyoueither]

No worries. Crack a beer and relax.

:beer:

[Mrs. Tuberski]

Originally posted by notyoueither
No worries. Crack a beer and relax.

:beer:

already done

[Mr. Harley]

Mrs. Tuberski - you are running into the same problem I ran into with Patroklas, just worse. You have people that talk about the "statistics", those nice numbers and use people without children as their "examples" proving their point.

You and I know what it's like to be worrying what can we skip till next month, or can we kite a check to squeak by till the next paycheck, etc. It's not real to them. It's like the Neocons dismantling the government for their personal tax cuts - all those people who voted for those taxcuts who got nailed by Hurricane Katrina suddenly want a well-funded FEMA.

To them, your problems aren't really an issue until it is their problem. We both know how quickly one change, whether it's a bastard husband abandoning not just his wife but his three children, or a chance spark, can take us from a sort of comfortable mostly middle-class existance to a hand-to-mouth existance. One coworker of mine said it's not until this country really has hard economic times will the voters grow up and start voting intelligently. FYI she grew up poor and black in Mississippi but pulled herself out of that - she had wonderful parents.

I truly feel sorry for people like - damn, I'm drawing a blank on his name, he posted recently, but his mom was a drug addict and he had a really rough time as a kid. Sikander had it tough too. For most people they seem to have trouble understanding poverty is until they've live it - the same with abuse. I suspect that's why FDR was so successful after the Great Depression - that generation knew in their bones that IT COULD HAPPEN TO THEM. Today most people don't believe it anymore.

[notyoueither]

*sniff, sniff*

[Mr. Harley]

We love you too, nye.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Mrs. Tuberski

Mentally exhaustive jobs are just as hard as physical ones. Your just exhausting a different muscle.

Sorry, but I have to disagree.

I've done jobs that were physically exhausting- cleaning a car factory in the summer fortnight layoff has to be one of the most tiring I've ever done- a year's worth of dried car paint impacted on the rails and walls of a car drying oven, a year's worth of industrial grease, some still viscous, some as hard as baked clay, again nearly solidly fixed to metal surfaces, having to be removed with small handscrapers and larger broom length scrapers.

Then there was cleaning the floor surfaces with some very smelly dangerous chemicals, designed to strip (again) a year's worth of accumulated industrial gunk.

I've also done white collar clerical work which involved lifting nothing heavier than my hands on the keyboard of a terminal, or occasionally a file of planning decisions- and I can tell you that working from 07:30 until 16:30 six days a week factory cleaning (half a day on Sunday) in temperatures reaching 100 degrees inside (and you have to wear regulation waxed paper overalls and rubber gloves and boots) was great for losing weight, but mentally and physically draining like no other employment I've ever had.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by notyoueither

OTOH, if I were living in Toronto or Vancouver, I'd be screwed on rent. Forget about owning anything.

You're dead on the money- a living wage in the north of England, or in Scotland or Wales or Northern Ireland would not be a living wage in London- you'd need to be living at home with your parents and residing next to your place of work, and eating gruel to get by.


Even in places like Cornwall, which always looks so attractive in holiday brochures, there is long term unemployment, because many jobs are seasonal, dependent on tourist trade, which has a habit of sloping off dramatically in a Cornish winter- strangely some holidaymakers have a reluctance to brave Atlantic gales on Cornish beaches.

It means that many young people in Cornwall aren't able to afford a deposit, let alone a first home, and there are always complaints about 'emmets' (outsiders) buying up available housing stock.


There's no point anyone assuming that poor in London is the same set of criteria as poor in Skelmersdale or Wick or Swansea or Penzance.

[Velociryx]

And all of this is FANTASTIC!

Everyone has examples of people in specific situations (either above, or below the government's established Poverty Line) either living well, below it, or living poorly, above it.

That's good.

Doesn't change a THING, but that's good.

It proves that we're all individuals, and that this is a big country, and that a national statistic can't cover each and every individual case....and a whole host of other things, besides!

What it DOESN'T do, is change the fact that according to the GOVERNMENT'S OWN DEFINITION of poverty, there are more people living IN poverty now, than there were four years ago.

More people than the normal growth in population can account for.

It's not because of where we are in the business cycle.

It's not because more of "those people" suddenly moved in.

And it's not easy to admit when "your team" screws the pooch.

Is the statistic perfect? Nope.

And there's not a national statistic ANYWHERE that would fare better if you take the number to define the national average and compare it to a real, living, breathing INDIVIDUAL person.

Statistics ARE an abstraction. Abstractions can be used to talk about general trends in a society, but they can, in no real way, be set side by side with a real person and compared.

That's one of the silliest notions I have ever heard.

As an average though, and a general indicator though, it works.

What's happening here, is that we've got a telling statistic that's saying things some people don't want to hear, so now of course, there's a call to change the statistic (and predictably, the proposed changes will make "their side" look better...now THERE'S a surprise!)

But that's not how it works.

Using the current toybox of indicators that measure the health and vitality of this country, one thing is clear.

The number of people living in poverty in this country has increased markedly since the sitting administration took over.

As a general trend, this doesn't say good things about the sitting administration.



-=Vel=-

[Ted Striker]

So, the two combined = a wash.

Go ahead and tell that to the people wrongly above the line not getting any help (an sure Shawn appreciates your understanding of his situation), and I am sure the people needlessly below it appreciate your generocity.

It's funny that you continue to argue against things not even attributed to me. All I've stated, about 10 times now, is that the poverty line is an indicator of a trend. That's clear to see, at the macro level. This has been pointed out, repeatedly, not only by myself, but by several other posters. The trend is that more people at the lower end of the income scale have less money. Period.

You seem to want to attribute a strawman to me that says I believe the poverty indicator means someone is poor or not, AND worthy of help, because of that indicator. Well, I don't believe that, as has been stated by myself and several others, several times. In fact it's getting old. You know this, you're just acting like you're ignoring it, and the dishonesty is getting really old now.

Are there individual cases above the line that need help? Of course. Duh. I've stated this from the beginning.

But that doesn't change the fact that this is a useful indicator. I think I'll just cut and paste this post from now on.

Nice try though. Next time don't project so much.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by notyoueither
I should say that I understand exactly where Patroklos is coming from.

In a big country it is entirely possible to be below the poverty line, but not be impoverished, depending on where you live. Equally, it is possible to be above the line, but live in misery because real estate values have gone off the scale of what could be considered reasonable.

Well, duh, and the rest of the posters in this thread understand that as well.

But the line is still a useful tool.