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Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

bloomberg.com

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Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#251

Post by gridlockd »

> Defined by the percentage of the population earning less than half of the median national income, Japan’s poverty rate is more than 15%

Okay, but how bad is that, relatively speaking? Let's imagine income in Japan doubled over night for everyone. You'd still have that same rate of poverty. We need to look at the outcome. As the article says, you don't find drug addicts and petty criminals roaming the streets in Japan.

This number also disregards price differences. If you are a young worker, you likely live in the city, paying exorbitant Japanese urban rents, requiring a commensurate salary. If you are old, you likely live outside the urban center on a modest pension, with far lower living expenses. Japan of course has a very large elderly population.

Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#252

Post by soVeryTired »

anthony1617 wrote: post #236
soVeryTired wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's precisely what the GDP/capita captures. It's about $62,000. And we're already chopping 27% of that in taxes to fund our current [generally underfunded] programs, so you can drop it down to $45k. I think you've misunderstood the nature of government spending. It's not like the government destroys that 27% when it spends it: the money is just redirected from where it might have gone (i.e. consumer spending) to o…

> It's not like the government destroys that 27% when it spends it: the money is just redirected It's easier to think about these things in terms of labor than in terms of money - money is too abstract and it's easy to make logical errors. Imagine we have a 100% labor/service economy. Each time money changes hands, it means that that much "value" of labor has been exerted. In this sense, it is clear that the GDP is a…

> If each time money changes hands, the government takes 27%, that means that 27% of all labor exerted in the economy goes to the government, and is spent, permanently.

But the labour goes towards a government program. If the program is absolutely worthless, then you're right: nothing of value was created and 27% of GDP was "spent". But if the service was just as valuable as what each worker would have done, then nothing is lost. The reality is probably somewhere in-between. Some work is wasted as a result of bureaucracy, but otherwise the government makes good use of its taxes.

> No, then the consumer would put that 10k / year towards some other purpose instead, and it would still show up in the GDP.

GDP measures value added to an economy. If the price of a product drops, it adds less value. Consider the cost of adding a column of numbers in the era before computers (done by a trained clerk) vs today, where the cost is effectively zero. We don't account for all clerical work that has been automated away in the GDP figures anymore because it's essentially free.

Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#253

Post by fuzz4lyfe »

foldr wrote: post #249
fuzz4lyfe wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but a typical tech salary in New York or San Fransisco isn't going to be enough to live in a town house. That's true, but then I'd be talking about salaries that aren't double of what is offered in London but 5 or 6 fold higher. I own my home and support my wife and daughter by myself in a low crime suburban area in the US, that isn't possible anywhere I could find in the UK. Did I also mention I didn't go to colleg…

Tech salaries in NYC and SF aren't 5 or 6 times higher than tech salaries in London. >I own my home and support my wife and daughter by myself in a low crime suburban area in the US, that isn't possible anywhere I could find in the UK. I'm not sure what you're saying at this point. I grew up in a low crime suburban area in the UK. My Dad worked, my mom stayed at home. They owned the house. My Dad works as a programme…

> Tech salaries in NYC and SF aren't 5 or 6 times higher than tech salaries in London.

I've seen 75k USD salaries commonly in London and 400k+ is not unheard of in fang companies.

>Erm, no. You will not likely meet the eligibility requirements for medicaid. That's just wishful thinking. If that's how the system worked, medical bankruptcies wouldn't happen.

If I have money and insurance why do I need assistance? The disaster situation you were describing seemed to imply that I would no longer be working and have insurance. If I'm working and have insurance I'll just pay my copays and get care that way. If I have no income due to a disability, I'd get SSDI and medicaid.

>They're not allowed to refuse you life-saving emergency treatment. They sure can refuse to give you chemo, refuse to give you reconstructive surgery if you've been badly burned, etc. etc.

Care to cite a time where that ever happened?

Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#254

Post by copenja »

foldr wrote: post #221
fuzz4lyfe wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know how much US insurance costs your employer, but I assume it's several times more, rather than several times less, than mine pays! You also likely make half what I make and that's before taxes (my wife is from the UK, I looked at jobs over there and rural US IT salaries can beat London IT salaries). I prefer my deal to yours.

That’s true, but how much of that extra money you get to keep in the long run is determined by the health lottery. If you end up having cancer for 5 years, you can kiss it all goodbye. But yes, one thing that's tough for Europeans who haven't lived in the US to comprehend is that Americans really do prefer being able to buy a bigger TV to having proper security when it comes to health care.

Most employer sponsored healthcare plans in the US have a maximum out of pocket the patient can be charged per year.

The average cost for someone with cancer and an employer sponsored plan in the US is around $6000 per year. That's $500 a month.

https://www.cheatsheet.com/health-fitness/how-much-you-can-r...

Both my parents had cancer and survived in US, so I do know from first hand experience. They did not get ruined financially.

That said, I do support healthcare for all in the US.

Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#255

Post by blaser-waffle »

icebraining wrote: post #130
CalRobert wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"get out of you don't like it" Nobody saying this has actually researched it. Too many people in the states are under the impression you can just up and move to a European country, no problem. One friendly-but-clueless acquaintance got flown back from Heathrow for asking the immigration officer about where to find jobs when she landed. If you don't/can't: * work in tech or medicine * go to university in Europe in a h…

As usual, if you're well-off you have extra options. Get $500k to buy some property (which you can then rent) in Portugal or Spain and you get residency (and later can apply for citizenship). Then again, if you have access to $500k, the safety net is probably less interesting.

$400k CAD to get an investor visa in Canada.

There is also an entrepreneur visa, though you have to have funding via some of the approved venture firms.

QC will add its own rules -- they have their own Immigration Dept. -- but if you have a lot of money to spend you're probably not going to Quebec anyways, since their taxes are high, even by CAN standards.

Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#256

Post by wtdata »

In keep seeing this devious mixing of 2 different concepts in order to support one's political ideology.

The 2 different cases the autor of the article tries to mix here are:

1 - People born poor normally have much more difficulty in reaching the highest economical levels of society.

2 - People born poor cannot reach an economical level above poverty, even if they put a fair amount of effort in it.

The author (and many people discussing the subject) usually try to mix no 1 with no 2 in order to write these kind of articles and cause indignation about a false premise.

Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#257

Post by strikelaserclaw »

If you have been fortunate in life, then you realize how much of your life is just luck of the draw and you start having more empathy for other people (hopefully) and you realize that we (America) are at a stage where we can afford to give basic social safety nets to people who need it the most. Hell, i think medical insurance is one of the biggest scams. I haven't gone to the doctors in years, yet i pay every month, i would much rather this money go into a pool which can pay for the health care of the poor instead of making insurance company owners rich. Just implementing free healthcare would be enormously beneficial to most Americans.

Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#258

Post by foldr »

fuzz4lyfe wrote: post #253
foldr wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech salaries in NYC and SF aren't 5 or 6 times higher than tech salaries in London. >I own my home and support my wife and daughter by myself in a low crime suburban area in the US, that isn't possible anywhere I could find in the UK. I'm not sure what you're saying at this point. I grew up in a low crime suburban area in the UK. My Dad worked, my mom stayed at home. They owned the house. My Dad works as a programme…

> Tech salaries in NYC and SF aren't 5 or 6 times higher than tech salaries in London. I've seen 75k USD salaries commonly in London and 400k+ is not unheard of in fang companies. >Erm, no. You will not likely meet the eligibility requirements for medicaid. That's just wishful thinking. If that's how the system worked, medical bankruptcies wouldn't happen. If I have money and insurance why do I need assistance? The d…

>I've seen 75k USD salaries commonly in London and 400k+ is not unheard of in fang companies.

You're just comparing a typical dev salary in London to an unusually high dev salary for NYC or SF. I don't see what insight you hope to gain by doing that. (The people making big money as software developers in London work as independent consultants rather than employees, by the way, as it's more favorable from a tax point of view and - lol - you don't have to worry about not having health insurance.)

>If I have money and insurance why do I need assistance?

Because you don't have enough money. There's no cap on medical bills. See for example the article I linked to regarding the $500,000 bill for dialysis. The person in question had insurance.

>Care to cite a time where that ever happened?

Holy crap, you really mean it. It happens all the time, as you can find out just by googling. Hospitals are under no obligation to give you chemo if you can't pay for it.

https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2016/06/03/Study-One-quarter...

https://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/20170221/many-younger-canc...

Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#259

Post by usrusr »

peteretep wrote: post #110
hestipod wrote: post #33

I was disabled by bad surgery and lost my career. No system that ostensibly should have helped, did. Denied. Denied. Denied. YEARS of adversarial, not default helpful, meetings and challenges and interviews. I saw people worse than me refused help. I saw real time as people who knew me for years or life, who respected me and my career choice helping others, decided I was a lazy mooch who wasn't trying hard enough, wa…

> America has a real empathy problem Hypothesis: that’s a function of some kind of Dunbar’s Law thing about the population size of a country. China and India as confirming examples, Japan as possibly an exception

I share that suspicion: when you pay taxes for lifting the poor from your doorstep, it not only helps them, it also improves your own quality of life. The poor half a continent away, not so much. The same applies when you replace "paying taxes" with any other measures that reduce inequality, like a preference for level education access, a judicial system that prefers rehabilitation to vengeance, minimum health standards and so on.

The dark side of this hypothesis is that it predicts that all those civilizatory achievements will increasingly come under pressure as national states become more open and integrated. It's almost a "national" and a "socialistic" idea, if you look at the terms without blending them into one. Which makes any meaningful discussion really hard.

Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#260

Post by SolaceQuantum »

briandear wrote: post #244
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My girlfriend recently moved in with me so we've done a lot of research. It's relatively easy to move here from within Europe, as in, if you move from an EU country you have a right to work and live here, and you get the same rights and responsibilities as soon as you register yourself as living here. If you want to move here from outside of the EU it's a whole other matter though. It boils down to two things though:…

How ironic that the “progressive” European welfare states have highly restricted immigration and America naturalizes more new citizens each year than the rest of the world combined. The US also allows illegal aliens de facto residence assuming they haven’t committed a significant crime. We even provide free education. If those illegal aliens have a child in the US, we give that child citizenship and subsequently make…

"America naturalizes more new citizens each year than the rest of the world combined."

Source?

"it is interesting that Republicans give to charity at a vastly higher rates than Democrats [1]"

Where is the [1] source?

" I’m sorry for people who have bad luck, but where is their family? Their church? Their local community? How is someone outside of my community or family circle my problem?"

Isn't this the argument here that there is an empathy problem, as your post is displaying a lack of empathy?

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