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California has the USA’s highest poverty rate, when factoring in cost-of-living

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Re: California has the USA’s highest poverty rate, when factoring in cost-of-living

#4
A challenge with poverty rates in the US is that they often essentially proxy for "what proportion of the population recently immigrated from low-wage countries"; immigration from e.g. Mexico to the US often causes the poverty rate in both countries to rise and every actual human to be better off. California has ~10 million immigrants; many of them arrived rather recently.

(I think this is a variation on Simpson's paradox.)

Re: California has the USA’s highest poverty rate, when factoring in cost-of-living

#7
post #4

A challenge with poverty rates in the US is that they often essentially proxy for "what proportion of the population recently immigrated from low-wage countries"; immigration from e.g. Mexico to the US often causes the poverty rate in both countries to rise and every actual human to be better off. California has ~10 million immigrants; many of them arrived rather recently. (I think this is a variation on Simpson's pa…

> immigration from e.g. Mexico to the US often causes the poverty rate in both countries to rise

Both countries? How's that work if it's poor Mexicans coming here?

Re: California has the USA’s highest poverty rate, when factoring in cost-of-living

#8
post #2

$30,000 a year "poverty" https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-global-p... "more than 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day."

Maybe try restating your point in units of food and shelter. Dollars have no intrinsic value.

Re: California has the USA’s highest poverty rate, when factoring in cost-of-living

#9
post #7
post #4

A challenge with poverty rates in the US is that they often essentially proxy for "what proportion of the population recently immigrated from low-wage countries"; immigration from e.g. Mexico to the US often causes the poverty rate in both countries to rise and every actual human to be better off. California has ~10 million immigrants; many of them arrived rather recently. (I think this is a variation on Simpson's pa…

> immigration from e.g. Mexico to the US often causes the poverty rate in both countries to rise Both countries? How's that work if it's poor Mexicans coming here?

Fun fact: most immigrants from Mexico are not poor-relative-to-Mexico.

Re: California has the USA’s highest poverty rate, when factoring in cost-of-living

#10
post #4

A challenge with poverty rates in the US is that they often essentially proxy for "what proportion of the population recently immigrated from low-wage countries"; immigration from e.g. Mexico to the US often causes the poverty rate in both countries to rise and every actual human to be better off. California has ~10 million immigrants; many of them arrived rather recently. (I think this is a variation on Simpson's pa…

Is this really true for Mexican immigration? The stereotype is that the US gets Mexican peasants and Indian doctors, at least. Everything you say is true for the Indian doctor or Chinese software engineer.

Thus their departure would raise incomes in Mexico while lowering it in the US. So your point is mostly right, at least as it relates to this story.

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