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The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

theguardian.com

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Re: The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

#61

Post by mabbo »

rfugger wrote: post #7

And this is in Canada, where the author's surgery and other medical care was covered in full by universal health care. Without that, her situation likely would have been far worse, and yet we can still do so much better.

The smug Canadian "well, we don't have these problems here" look on my face dropped into a shocked one when I read that she lives in the same city as me. Probably one of my neighbors.

Going to go make a donation to North York Harvest now. Seems like I don't understand poverty enough to say that it's not needed.

Re: The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

#62

Post by tedmiston »

vondur wrote: post #19

I grew up poor. I don’t know how my dad managed it. I’m thankful every day that I don’t have to worry like my parents did.

We work in a very fortunate industry with respect to economic mobility.

I've seen many people in tech go from a lower class or lower-middle class socioeconomic upbringing (myself included) to reaching a much more stable and comfortable point.

This is why I'm so excited for startups like Lambda School that allow more people to cross over even if they couldn't afford to take on the financial burden of an engineering degree. The aggregate economic impact on people's lives is astounding.

Re: The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

#63

Post by 0815test »

xeromal wrote: post #2

Poverty especially sucks when you're all alone like it seems this person was. Where I grew up, most of the people were poor, but we had rich lives for the most part. Lots of family dinners and outings. The people with more would let you take the leftovers home. You can't really train this and we all definitely need a social safety net, but I do think our closed off society prevents us from helping each other too.

I'd even argue that "relative" poverty at least (i.e. once one escapes actual, severe deprivation, which is mostly a factor in underdeveloped countries but not entirely unknown in the West, either) is all about the "being alone" factor. The best "anti-poverty" policy, once material abundance is achieved (and a UBI can help with that) is to promote social inclusion and to strenghten institutions that provide social capital.

Conservatives understand this very well, BTW; strong social capital is key to the conservative worldview, whereas a "liberal" is often more inclined to see the world in terms of material relations of production and an inherently-unstable balance of power, and even the very notion of social atomization might be entirely foreign to them.

Re: The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

#65

Post by [deleted] »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #29
blablabla123 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, to some degree if you have the money you can buy yourself a safety net. If you neither have money nor the social safety net, the thing left is what government may provide. I grew up with a divorced mother that could provide only a small social safety net through family and an unstable financial situation. Although my financial situation is very stable since I've graduated - with small gaps - I'm extremely carefu…

We all have to do our part to extend safety nets to those in our spheres of influence. I have done very well in life, mostly through what I attribute to luck and being at the right place at the right time. In return, I treat checking in and providing a helping hand (temporary housing, an extra line on my cellphone plan, or in some cases plain old cash) to extended family, friends, and others I encounter as a second j…

[deleted]

Re: The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

#66

Post by fucking_tragedy »

malvosenior wrote: post #24
rfugger wrote: post #7

And this is in Canada, where the author's surgery and other medical care was covered in full by universal health care. Without that, her situation likely would have been far worse, and yet we can still do so much better.

If you are poor in the US your healthcare costs will mostly or entirely be covered. This includes major surgery.

This isn't correct. In states that accepted Medicaid expansion through the ACA, those who make a certain percentage of the federal poverty level[1] would be eligible for coverage under Medicaid. I would argue that the FPL is laughably low, and that an income that is even twice that of the FPL still counts as poverty level income.

In states that didn't accept Medicaid expansion through the ACA, people who are poor are not eligible for coverage under Medicaid.

You can see which states accepted Medicaid expansion through the ACA here[2].

[1] FPL for a single individual is $12,140. For a family of 3, it is $20,780.

[2] https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/status-of-state-med...

Re: The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

#67

Post by rayiner »

chimi wrote: post #40
malvosenior wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are poor in the US your healthcare costs will mostly or entirely be covered. This includes major surgery.

Which I never understood. USA provides free healthcare for people who are poor because they don't work and healthcare for people who are retired and don't work. But the USA does not provide healthcare for people who work and keep machine turning. Hmm... I wonder if it's a political lobbying by healthcare industry to get more money for people who wouldn't provide it on their own by extracting it from the tax payers wh…

The US provides health care to the poor but not other people because we view it as part of the social safety net, not a general public service. We can debate about which is the right view, but you don’t need “lobbying” to get to the US view.

Re: The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

#68

Post by cm2012 »

yyyymmddhhmmss wrote: post #26
cm2012 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're both right. Research shows that more money doesn't make you happier - after around 80k a year in family income. Before 80k a year (depending on location, etc, I think that was the average for the USA), every dollar absolutely makes you happier with a linear line graph. This is also a great argument for more marginal taxation.

If 80k/yr is considered poor, then sure, but that’s absurd. She was right. He was wrong.

Totally agree, I should have phrased it better.

Re: The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

#69

Post by fucking_tragedy »

sudhirj wrote: post #4

Leaving aside the politics of a universal basic income, would a UBI have helped or hindered this person? Do most UBI schemes assume that healthcare subsidies would stop for instance, and the money be redirected to the UBI? Or would the income be on top of whatever healthcare subsidies already exist?

> Do most UBI schemes assume that healthcare subsidies would stop for instance, and the money be redirected to the UBI?

Most UBI schemes position UBI as supplemental income in conjunction with public assistance.

There's a small, but vocal, minority who wants to replace all public assistance with UBI.

Re: The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

#70

Post by [deleted] »

whack wrote: post #48
chrisseaton wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like normal usage to my British ears. ‘Too poor to go out this weekend’ for example. Poor means you don’t have enough money. Too poor to do something means not enough money to do that thing. Too poor to buy a super-yacht sounds normal usage to me even.

Language evolves. People often say things ironically. Other times, they exaggerate for emphasis. A good example is "literally", which has evolved so much that the dictionary has literally changed its definition to indicate that it could be used metaphorically https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally Trying to police popular slang is a losing endeavor, and I don't think it accomplishes all that much. Peopl…

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