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Why Poverty Persists in America

nytimes.com

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Re: Why Poverty Persists in America

#71

Post by prottog »

MSFT_Edging wrote: post #66
blindriver wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Giving people living in generational poverty a handout is the BEST way to keep them enslaved on government largesse. You need to take that money and invest in their neighborhoods and lift the entire neighborhood out of poverty by educating them. My God, how many eons is the saying "Give a man a fish..." been around? Yet the best idea we still have is to hand money out to absolve ourselves of collective guilt? Look at…

Poverty is cyclical. It continues because it's expensive to be poor, and one road block multiplies to many roadblocks. You're upset about the SF homelessness budget and homelessness activists, but what is your solution? break up homeless camps and throw all their earthly possessions into a dumpster, then tell them to "elevate themselves" at the shelter where they're more likely to be assaulted and stolen from? Or may…

You're attributing a lot of intent to the GP ("you don't want to see them as human") that wasn't written. I don't think there's anything wrong in asking what kind of results the nearly $700m that San Francisco has budgeted for the homeless has gotten the city, and why the idea persists that more money would alleviate the problem.

It's ipso facto sensible that giving people addicted to drugs an upside to continue their addiction (i.e. a safe place to consume said drugs) and no downside (i.e. no threat of jail time) will make them in fact continue to be addicted and unable to become productive members of society. If you're asking for studies, it's incumbent upon you to prove why it would be otherwise.

Re: Why Poverty Persists in America

#72

Post by tomrod »

vanilla_nut wrote: post #45
schnitzelstoat wrote: post #6

> If enough workers in a specific economic sector — retail, hotel services, nursing — voted for the measure, the secretary of labor could establish a bargaining panel made up of representatives elected by the workers. The panel could negotiate with companies to secure the best terms for workers across the industry. I'd be wary of these 'mega-unions' my SO has one here in Spain as she is a nurse and it hasn't been ver…

Sounds like a kind of monopoly to me! But this time on labor-employer relations. As usual, competition is necessary to encourage constant improvement. Without competition, workers have no way to "vote with their feet" and leave an abusive or incompetent union. I wonder if any countries regulate these kinds of unions as the monopolies that they are?

Yes! A chance to geek out on economics!

A "monopoly" refers to supply side, when one supplier is (or practically is) the entire market supply.

But on the demand side, the term is "monopsony."

For example, the US Department of Defense is (probably) a monopsony for fighter pilots. The classic example is the company-owned coal town.

Another term to remember is "regulatory capture." This usually refers to a government's regulators having their incentives captured by those they are intended to regulate. However, the incentive structures are more or less equivalent if an union is captured by a monopsony employer.

Re: Why Poverty Persists in America

#73

Post by slowmovintarget »

giantg2 wrote: post #22
schnitzelstoat wrote: post #3

> The deregulation of the banking system in the 1980s heightened competition among banks. Many responded by raising fees and requiring customers to carry minimum balances. In 1977, over a third of banks offered accounts with no service charge. By the early 1990s, only 5 percent did. I would think that increased competition would improve conditions for customers?

Eh, that's basically moot in the discussion of why people are poor. People have to earn money to put in those accounts. Real wages have fallen for the past 50 years. The barrier to entry for any job has increased (criminal record issues, college, certifications, responsibilities of multiple roles being lumped together), and some classes of jobs (primary and secondary sectors requiring lower education/skill) have dimi…

That downward pressure is from outsourcing.

Unions can organize all they want. Politicians can raise the minimum wage all they want. Those things don't fix the main problem that the making-things-here jobs that support wage increases across the board are absent.

Re: Why Poverty Persists in America

#74

Post by cmh89 »

prottog wrote: post #67
cmh89 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on what "cultures" don't value education and self-improvement?

As the other commenter replied, inner-city gang culture is a principal example that is destructive to so many children's futures. Even among groups that would be categorized together in the US, such as African-Americans, you can see a clear divided in outcomes between cultures; Nigerian-Americans, for example, have a higher average income than the US average, and nearly twice that of Somali-Americans. Average incomes…

>As the other commenter replied, inner-city gang culture is a principal example that is destructive to so many children's futures.

Why do you think 'inner-city' gang culture develops?

>Even among groups that would be categorized together in the US, such as African-Americans, you can see a clear divided in outcomes between cultures; Nigerian-Americans, for example, have a higher average income than the US average, and nearly twice that of Somali-Americans.

What are the differences in immigration reason for these groups? I'm not familiar with Nigerian immigration, but Somalian immigration is driven by leaving strife and come as refugees. Is that the case for Nigerians?

You can't judge how successful a culture is just because of their income, you have to know where they started and what resources they have access to.

> Average incomes for black people who immigrated to the US is considerably higher than those native-born.

It makes sense to me that people who can afford and have the qualifications needed to emigrate to the US will have better job prospects than people living in generational poverty and enduring systemic racism.

Re: Why Poverty Persists in America

#75

Post by slowmovintarget »

hanniabu wrote: post #7
tomrod wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aye, and the Postal Office can also be a solution here. Personnel distribution, processes, etc. would be fairly straightforward to re-implement. https://www.aarp.org/money/investing/info-2022/restarting-po...

The usps is the only well functioning government organization left and Republicans are set on kneecapping it so they can privatize it

You're forgetting the NIST. They operate at a net profit, selling things like Standard Jars of Peanut Butter for equipment calibration ($1,069 per unit).

There's a cool Veritasium video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esQyYGezS7c

Re: Why Poverty Persists in America

#76

Post by andrewmutz »

schnitzelstoat wrote: post #3

> The deregulation of the banking system in the 1980s heightened competition among banks. Many responded by raising fees and requiring customers to carry minimum balances. In 1977, over a third of banks offered accounts with no service charge. By the early 1990s, only 5 percent did. I would think that increased competition would improve conditions for customers?

Left unmentioned is that interest rates in 1977 were high (like 8 percent) so there were lots of ways for the bank to turn around and make money off customer deposits, without needing to charge the customer fees.

Since that time, interest rates have steadily dropped and that business model no longer works very well

Re: Why Poverty Persists in America

#77

Post by cmh89 »

blindriver wrote: post #64
cmh89 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one talks about the 20+ murders a weekend in South-side Chicago. No one. How do you expect children to get an education and lift themselves out of poverty when they are terrified of being gunned down every single day? Crime in Chicago isn't talked about? That's not been my experience. It's literally infamous for it. >The worst parts of the US need a well-trained, well-monitored police state that will bring safet…

> Crime in Chicago isn't talked about? That's not been my experience. It's literally infamous for it. If you ask your coworker today, how many shootings were there in Chicago last weekend, unless you live in or near Chicago, they will be shocked that there were 17 shootings and 4 homicides just over the weekend. Murders are "down" in 2023 with only 83 murders since Jan 1, 2023. We are only 10 weeks into the year. > T…

>If you ask your coworker today, how many shootings were there in Chicago last weekend, unless you live in or near Chicago, they will be shocked that there were 17 shootings and 4 homicides just over the weekend.

Would they? Literally everyone who reads the news knows Chicago has a lot of shootings. This sounds like something you made up to drive a narrative rather than basing it in truth.

> think if enough money is poured into it, with enough eyeballs on it, and a high level of training, it can be very effective.

There is no way it would be effective. Brutal? Yes. Inhumane? Sure. Suffering? Absolutely. The type of person who is attracted to being an authoritarian is not the type of person you want to have power. We already live in a quasi-police state, much more than other countries, and we still have a ton of crime and violence.

>You can't achieve economic security without safety.

You have that backwards. You can't achieve safety without economic security.

>. Can you name a single wealthy location with as high a crime rate as South side Chicago or Baltimore?

Nope, because wealthy places don't have a ton of crime. I'm not sure how that supports your argument, because it's literally what I'm saying.

Can you point to a very poor place that is safe due to the police?

>We have fucking ABANDONED Baltimore and it's disgusting.

Baltimore has more police per capita than other city besides DC https://baltimorefishbowl.com/stories/baltimore-police-per-c...

Baltimore is literally the closest city we have to a police state, you apparently don't like the outcome.

Edit* @yucky - HN doesn't want me to post and I don't want to come back and remember to post in a hour or whenever I'm allowed to again so here ya are

Police are powerful in all communities in the US. Rural people generally have less interaction with the police than urban areas. If you want to kill someone or rob someone in a rural setting, police are almost a non-factor as they wont be nearby.

Re: Why Poverty Persists in America

#78

Post by ensignavenger »

There are many different definitions of poverty- but often, poverty is defined as a ratio or in relationship to others income. When using a definition like that, you will always have poverty in any state where you have any form of free monetary trade.

We can and we should do better. But we will never eliminate poverty so long as we want freedom of economic trade. (And use a definition that is relative).

Re: Why Poverty Persists in America

#79

Post by carapace »

humanrebar wrote: post #44
dfxm12 wrote: post #30

Despite absolute dollars per person spending increasing since the Reagan years, Americans remain in poverty because: 1. Raising health care costs 2. Very little poverty spending actually goes to the recipients' pockets 3. Decline of union membership 4. Home ownership is out of reach and the rent is too damn high 5. Banking is expensive for poor people Most of these issues can be traced back to corporate lobbying. The…

Eh... you have some valid points, but poverty has existed under every single policy regime so far. Ever. In history. So why should I accept that the root problem is bad policy instead of something else?

Except that's not true, there was no poverty in all of North America, for example, up until a couple of hundred years ago.

In case this sounds snarky, let me be clear: this is a really important thing to consider (IMO): there are societies without poverty. It's just that most of us (reading this here today) are unfamiliar with them because they were and are actively destroyed by the poverty-having societies. (E.g. the destruction of the free pirates by the imperial navies. Destruction of Amazonians by loggers. I can list examples all day.)

By having a poverty-based system, you can force people to go into the armed forces and then use them to attack and destroy other societies to take their resources and expand your system. Without the "stick" of destitution no one will participate voluntarily in these unpleasant and unnatural systems. (E.g. people preferred Native American lifestyles to European American lifestyles. I've got a great quote from Ben Franklin on lock on that point, BTW...) The way it's usually framed is, "But who will pick up the garbage?"

Re: Why Poverty Persists in America

#80

Post by bryanlarsen »

celeritascelery wrote: post #63
Spinnaker_ wrote: post #31

The amount of single parent households has 5X'd since the 50s. The US now leads the world in this measure. This seems like such an obvious factor to leave out of an article like this. I have trouble believing it's not one of, if not the most important changes the US has gone through.

There is a strong correlation between poverty and single parent households[1 2 3]. However it is not a popular thing to talk about because it can feel like “blaming the victim”. But if we ignore it we can’t have productive conversations about how to solve poverty. [1] https://post.ca.gov/portals/0/post_docs/publications/Buildin... [2] https://ifstudies.org/blog/less-poverty-less-prison-more-col... [3] https://www.the…

But is the correlation cause or effect? AFAICT, there is strong evidence that poverty is a leading cause of single parent households.
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