what's "poor"?

[LucyStoner]

Poor people have few and limited choices in their lives. Rich people have nearly unlimited choices. We live in a country where most people- from the barely scraping by working class, to the affluent but not hand over fist wealthy consider themselves "middle class". We all think we are in the middle. I am sorry but there is a fundamental difference in how you can live your life and the choices you have if you are raising a family of 4 on $20,000 a year vs. $200,000 a year. In reality far more people are lower on the spectrum than they realize and more people are affluent/rich than are willing to admit it.

[Slartibartfast]

This website has better information in regarding to different COL in different areas.

http://livingwage.mit.edu/

[LucyStoner]

Re: living as one person on $13,000. Being poor can be a lot of work and make mandatory what for others are unimaginable compromises. My family of 4 lived on less than that, adjusted for inflation when I was a child. We lived lots of places- a barn, a motel where in exchange for cleaning, they let us stay in a 1 room kitchenette, a van, a slew of nearly condemned housing rented illegally and for little money etc. We didn't always have enough money to use the laundromat. I was 26 before i lived in a home with a dishwasher and a w/d. My parents were wizards at filling bellies with pennies. The food bank was just one stop for affordable food. Most desirable clothes were gifts from relatives or when I got older thrift clothes I bought myself with my own earnings. Other clothes were thrifty thrift or from free clothing banks. The height of excitement was new shoes from Payless. Things were not just tight, they were confining and limiting in scope. I am the first person in my mother's family to graduate from high school. College was a huge, huge deal. My mother's poverty was generational- no one in her family line had bees anything but dirt poor and frankly fairly dysfunctional. My dad came from a middle class background and just made bad choices which later limited him to worse choices. I do think that poverty can exist in a first world country. I know people who have died because of their poverty here. That is real poverty, no matter how many more people face that same fate in a third world nation. The truly poor in this country are barely visible to outsiders. Because trust me, you learn to stay out of sight if you have a family of 4 living in a van or motel or barn. You don't want to lose your kids via middle class social workers just because you are poor.

[Crimson Wife]

I am sorry but there is a fundamental difference in how you can live your life and the choices you have if you are raising a family of 4 on $20,000 a year vs. $200,000 a year. In reality far more people are lower on the spectrum than they realize and more people are affluent/rich than are willing to admit it.

 

The problem is that those higher salaries are typically found in places with very high costs-of-living. $200k would be a very good income in most places in the U.S. but it's hard to find a job paying that much outside of expensive metro areas. So that $200k actually only has the equivalent purchasing power of a salary maybe half that in a normal COL place. It's not buying the kind of luxurious lifestyle that would make an observer think that the family is "rich".

[Dory]

Plenty of people who would define themselves as poor aren't automatically thankless. I grew up poor. Like not having enough food at times poor. I am not bitter. I was not unhappy for it (despite being picked on quite a bit for it). I was grateful, thankful, and the first person to give someone my paper route money if asked.

 

I kind of resent the thought that poverty in this country is said to be just an ungrateful state of mind. Even if so, then people need to stop being so nasty to poor people and treating them like worthless human beings. That's the bigger problem in my mind.

 

One of the most interesting things I've seen here is how content people are with less. Time after time I've seen people living in what I would call poverty and yet they are just happy and content.

 

A sign posted up outside a man's shack/lean-to in a beach town we visited summed it up nicely: "I knew a man, and all he had was money. How poor he was."

 

Such a different way of looking at things.

 

:iagree: I grew up in a house with no power and no running water. We wore winter clothes in the house as it was too cold to handle otherwise. Being hungry was not an unknown sensation. We used water as many times as possible and melted snow for many uses. We had a wood stove to cook on, but the house wasn't insulated enough for the wood stove to be able to keep up with heating it. The bathroom was outside. In the summer it was better as we had a garden. The milk cow and the garden is what kept us healthy. We were alright, we weren't bitter or unhappy. Poor people aren't always bitter and ungrateful. I didn't even realize we were poor till someone else pointed it out to me.

[LucyStoner]

The problem is that those higher salaries are typically found in places with very high costs-of-living. $200k would be a very good income in most places in the U.S. but it's hard to find a job paying that much outside of expensive metro areas. So that $200k actually only has the equivalent purchasing power of a salary maybe half that in a normal COL place. It's not buying the kind of luxurious lifestyle that would make an observer think that the family is "rich".

 

I live in a fairly HCOL metro area. I get all that you say. But my tolerance for people who make well into six figure salaries in my area claiming near poverty or denying that they are more affluent than average is nil and I hear it a lot. Because things are tighter for them than for a movie star or because they don't have a lot of blow money after housing, school and savings does not make them poor. We have generally been in the top 25% or so, about the median in my area and we do just fine. No we are not rich and we would be very affluent in a lcol area, but we are not poor either.

[QueenCat]

This website has better information in regarding to different COL in different areas.

http://livingwage.mit.edu/

 

Thank you for sharing this one!

[FairyMom]

Most advice I see for budgeting money is for people who have plenty of money. I always love the suggestions, for example, of stuff like don't buy Starbucks everyday, but brew your own coffee. Really? Like if I'm in financial deep shi* I'm probably not buying Starbucks everyday. Stupid suggestions....:glare:

 

I do think there is serious lack of financial literacy and I'll be the first to admit that the learning curve for me was steep and painful at times.

:lol: I loved this!

[LucyStoner]

Poor people aren't always bitter and ungrateful. I didn't even realize we were poor till someone else pointed it out to me.

 

This was my experience as well.

 

Being raised poor gave me some advantages I didn't realize till I was raising my middle class boys and we watched the economy crash.

 

-taking pleasures in simple things

- knowing the value of a dollar

- having more time with the people you love.

- genuine excitement over small creature comforts.

 

And when all my born into the middle class or above friends were freakin about the economy, I was fine. I know that I can be happy pretty much anywhere and with very little. That is a strange kind of security.

Edited August 2, 2012 by kijipt

[FairyMom]

This website has better information in regarding to different COL in different areas.

http://livingwage.mit.edu/

 

Very interesting. Although, they have the cost of medical in our county (McLennan) at $369 a month for a family of four. That's got to be out of pocket average and not insurance. I haven't found anything under $600 a month for us. I've been looking. :glare:

[shinyhappypeople]

This website has better information in regarding to different COL in different areas.

http://livingwage.mit.edu/

 

Whoa. We'd have to bring in about $2,000 more a month in order to have a "living wage" according to that calculator. It's not far off.

 

We make it. We're fine. We pay our bills, stay fed, have (inexpensive) clothing, old, ugly-but-paid-for cars, etc. We do without unimportant things (newer cars/car payments, cable, etc.) and have a few fun things like Netflix and, oh yes, the privilege of homeschooling my kids, great homeschool friends, close to one of the most beautiful places on the planet and blessed with a friendly library with an awesome ILL system. Also, my house may be small(ish) and old, but it's in decent shape, in a good area and is affordable. I'm not losing sleep over it.

 

The only time I feel the sting of poverty is in the fact that we can't afford to add me to DH's health insurance at work ($350/mo) because we'd end up about $200 in the red at the end of the month. That's scary. I'm uninsurable on my own, so it's ins. through DH or not at all. (Possibly the new health insurance laws will change things, though I have yet to see how they're defining "affordable.")

 

On the upside, there's a sliding scale clinic in town that charges me about $50/appt. (not cheap but not nearly what my regular doctor or the $$$$$ urgent care place charges).

 

All that to say... the definition of poverty is fuzzy to me, which is why I asked the question in the OP. In some ways we're "poor," but I rarely feel poor.

 

One last thing: I think there's a difference between being poor and being destitute. A lot of what we hear about in third world countries is destitution not mere poverty.

[LucyStoner]

Have you considered the tax differences?

 

It's astouding to compare a private industry job w/401k to gov't job with pension. People that have to manage their own retirement pay taxes on the money they contribute to retirement salary and medical when they earn it, unlike those who have pensions. They are not considered 'low income' like a gov't worker is when it comes to college need.

Consider..I have a relative who works for local govt. 55k salary for 10 months work at 6 hrs a day, cash portion of pension will be app 50k when eligible for retirement in after 20 years, lifetime pension comes with full medical. Because of the low salary, no income tax is paid at all and the children are considered 'needy' for college tuition purposes.

 

The relative who works and earns a $100k income for a full time, year round job has to contribute to 401k for his pension & medical, pays above 25% in income taxes if no mortgage (if mortage he'll be giving the bank roughly the same amt), and is not considered 'needy' for college tuition even though his net after taxes and a pension contribution which would leave him equal to the gov't worker leaves him with smaller net at year's end.

 

Most working poor people would like to have any of the benefits more common in government and higher paying private sector jobs. Pensions? 401k? If only. Things middle class folks take for granted are huge luxuries to those who are actually low income. Like being able to take an hour off work to take your kid to the doctor. I live in a city where tech workers with tidy salaries, several vacations a year say they are poor while sporting Patagonia clothes from head to toe and talkin about the new kayak they just bought. Having been poor, and earning a little bit less than them now but not feeling close to poor, I have to laugh.

Edited August 2, 2012 by kijipt

[Crimson Wife]

I live in a fairly HCOL metro area. I get all that you say. But my tolerance for people who make well into six figure salaries in my area claiming near poverty or denying that they are more affluent than average is nil and I hear it a lot. Because things are tighter for them than for a movie star or because they don't have a lot of blow money after housing, school and savings does not make them poor. We have generally been in the top 25% or so, about the median in my area and we do just fine. No we are not rich and we would be very affluent in a lcol area, but we are not poor either.

 

I didn't say it was "poor", just that unlike what certain politicians and OWS types would like to claim, it isn't "rich", either. It's not easily affording a McMansion, summer and/or ski condo, multiple luxury vehicles, designer clothes, exotic vacations, private school for the kids, etc., etc. I'm not talking a movie star or pro athlete lifestyle, but the kind of rich people that I grew up around (my folks aren't rich FWIW).

[IsabelC]

Depends on the context. In one sense, I'd only call somebody poor if they can't access all their basic needs. But in another context I'd call a person poor if they have a standard of living that is significantly below that of their peers and it's not by choice. It depends on what you're comparing to as well. For example, anyone rich enough to have internet access will doubtless find themselves near the top of the pile on a global comparison, as has already been pointed out. (You can get a quick estimate for your household here. My family income looks pretty good even though we are 'poor' enough to get government assistance here.) Additionally, by the way, 'ordinary' people are far and away the richest they have ever been throughout human history. But on the other hand, that kind of view is not really applicable to anything much; being in the top quartile globally is scant consolation when you're struggling to pay your housing costs in the place where you live!

 

As for 'middle class', there doesn't seem to be a consensus on any meaningful definition. A lot of people I would consider rich would call themselves middle class, or even 'upper middle class', because it's somehow not considered very 'nice' to admit to being rich. Also, middle class can be interpreted as a an attitude rather than a level of wealth.

 

I think there is an awful lot of judgement around comparative wealth. (I know I'm not immune to it myself, as I have been heard to complain about people who say they can't afford groceries yet choose to spend money on cigarettes and alcohol.) We don't want to punish people for getting richer because they worked hard, or conversely reward people for failing to work hard enough. And yet we also know that the level playing field meritocracy is a myth: it is a fact that not everybody has the same opportunities to be financially successful. I read about some interesting research on how much money people wanted to earn. It turned out that the average person would rather earn more than everybody around them, than earn more outright. Also that the average person thinks the ideal amount of income is just a bit more than whatever they are currently getting.

Edited August 2, 2012 by Hotdrink