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Growth Has Been Good for Decades. So Why Hasn’t Poverty Declined?

nytimes.com

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Re: Growth Has Been Good for Decades. So Why Hasn’t Poverty Declined?

#41

Post by happyscrappy »

jdlshore wrote: post #32
happyscrappy wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't stipulate that the poor are better off today than decades ago I don't know what to tell you. For some reason people insist on the "things are getting worse" narrative reality be damned.

The article makes a fairly compelling case that they're not better off. Do you have anything better than an argument from incredulity?

I don't find the author's contortions compelling in the slightest. I mean he doesn't even define poverty because it would poke giant holes in his story.

Re: Growth Has Been Good for Decades. So Why Hasn’t Poverty Declined?

#42

Post by happyscrappy »

Retric wrote: post #31
happyscrappy wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't stipulate that the poor are better off today than decades ago I don't know what to tell you. For some reason people insist on the "things are getting worse" narrative reality be damned.

Poor people in the US are getting shorter so at least when it comes to nutrition they are worse off. Now, if you assume cellphones make up for that it's possible but rather subjective. Afterall poor people in the developing world also have cellphones.

Do you have a source for that? I would imagine it has more to do with immigration.

Re: Growth Has Been Good for Decades. So Why Hasn’t Poverty Declined?

#43

Post by jlarocco »

hershel wrote: post #19
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 1950, middle class was a small house, one car, probably not a dishwasher, only one television in the house (if that), no computers (duh), no cell phones (also duh), no designer jeans, no fancy sneakers, much less snack food, much less eating out. You could live exactly that life today (maybe even on one income), but people would think that you were in poverty, or close. (Note well: I am not claiming that official…

Today poverty comes with some extra baggage - lower access to the healthcare system and much worse healthcare results, increased crime rate, low social status , higher stress, etc. Not everything in life is about possessions.

Actually, healthcare access has improved for everybody in the last 60 years, enough so that life expectancy has increased by 10 years.

Homicide (and presumably other violent crime) is about the same as 1950.

Further, "poor" people have always had lower social status and higher stress, so there's no change there.

In 1950 it wasn't uncommon for people to still use outhouses and not have electricity.

Life expectancy reference: http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/unpp/panel_indicators.htm

homicide rate reference: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0873729.html

Re: Growth Has Been Good for Decades. So Why Hasn’t Poverty Declined?

#45

Post by Retric »

opendais wrote: post #28
maxerickson wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression is that the trades are reasonably well served. So the people with work do fine in a trade, but there aren't well paying jobs for millions more people there. (I'm thinking of the U.S. where home building is at a relatively low rate right now)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/the-ha... http://www.coloradoan.com/story/money/2014/05/07/subcontract... http://contractormag.com/plumbing-contractor/skilled-tradesm... I think you are mistaken based on the fact I can find plenty of articles talking about a shortage. Likely due to the fact people think like you [and assume there is enough people]. It wouldn't absorb millions but it'd still redu…

I know plenty of people in the trades and there is no shortage of people do 90% of the work out there. Now, if you want someone to do precision welding underwater that's another story, but there is not a lot of those jobs, and they tend to be rather dangerous.

Re: Growth Has Been Good for Decades. So Why Hasn’t Poverty Declined?

#46

Post by lucb1e »

malyk wrote: post #23
lucb1e wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people who do "automatable" work can't make much money anymore. I tend to think of it "don't have to do that work anymore". They can focus on other things, but basically the work is done for us. So the machines are creating wealth and in the end people will have to work less and less. I'm not sure this is the right example, but wasn't it revolutionary of the Ford motors factory to introduce 8-hour work days in the…

The machines are creating wealth for the owners of the machines which isn't being (re)distributed to the former workers at all. That's the crux of the problem. Maybe there will be another revolution in jobs that need to be done that these people will be able to take up, but until that time we are sentencing a huge number of people to live in poverty. We need to find a way to help those people until this new class of…

> The machines are creating wealth for the owners of the machines which isn't being (re)distributed to the former workers at all.

Isn't it? You're right in that I have yet to hear someone laying off staff and then paying them because machines do all the work, but on the whole I do think everyone profits. At least in the Netherlands you get money during the time that you are looking for employment.

> we are sentencing a huge number of people to live in poverty

Last I heard we are still free to start our own farms and live off of those, but it seems people rather like having things like cars, power, the Internet and other luxuries of the past few decades. And most people living in "poverty", as you say, have all of the above.

Those won't be the best cars or the fastest connections to the Internet, but I never heard about a "huge" number of people being laid off and then having to go without all of that. You'd think they'd be in the streets rioting against the machines if it was that bad.

Re: Growth Has Been Good for Decades. So Why Hasn’t Poverty Declined?

#47

Post by jal278 »

paul_f wrote: post #24

Unless one defines poverty clearly, then I cannot accept this premise. For example, the US census bureau uses 48 different poverty thresholds and does not explain clearly where they came from. http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/about/overview/measur... Here are some other interesting comments that should throw the entire conversation into doubt: - They are intended for use as a statistical yardstick, not as a com…

While the particular measure of poverty may be in question, and in general poverty may be a tricky intuitive concept to nail down, the entire conversation is not thrown into doubt: We can quibble all day about the meaning and quantification of terms, but the underlying intuitive concept is what is important. I think we can agree that poverty in the US has not been eradicated -- although theoretically it seems possible given increases in productivity.

Has increased productivity and economic growth really 'trickled' down as some would argue? It would seem not, as wages have not increased proportionally with productivity [1]. It is at least worth thinking about the author's conclusion: "You also have to devise strategies that make the benefits of a stronger economy show up in the wages of the people on the edge of poverty, who need it most desperately."

[1] http://economics.stanford.edu/files/Theses/Theses_2007/Sachd...

Re: Growth Has Been Good for Decades. So Why Hasn’t Poverty Declined?

#48

Post by gadders »

happyscrappy wrote: post #22
spodek wrote: post #2

Growth describes the size of the economy. Poverty describes distribution. While size and distribution may correlate long enough that people start to believe they causally relate, they don't have to. "A rising tide lifts all boats" is a nice belief and accurate for many boats and tides, but there's no reason to believe that what holds for boats holds for economies, any more than the behavior of dominoes held for South…

If you can't stipulate that the poor are better off today than decades ago I don't know what to tell you. For some reason people insist on the "things are getting worse" narrative reality be damned.

Yeah, but if you use weasel words and change poverty to "relative poverty" you can massage the figures to make it appear that nothing ever improves.

Re: Growth Has Been Good for Decades. So Why Hasn’t Poverty Declined?

#49

Post by zachrose »

happyscrappy wrote: post #22
spodek wrote: post #2

Growth describes the size of the economy. Poverty describes distribution. While size and distribution may correlate long enough that people start to believe they causally relate, they don't have to. "A rising tide lifts all boats" is a nice belief and accurate for many boats and tides, but there's no reason to believe that what holds for boats holds for economies, any more than the behavior of dominoes held for South…

If you can't stipulate that the poor are better off today than decades ago I don't know what to tell you. For some reason people insist on the "things are getting worse" narrative reality be damned.

A true socialist would say that inequalities are themselves unjust.

Re: Growth Has Been Good for Decades. So Why Hasn’t Poverty Declined?

#50

Post by zacharytelschow »

jdlshore wrote: post #32
happyscrappy wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't stipulate that the poor are better off today than decades ago I don't know what to tell you. For some reason people insist on the "things are getting worse" narrative reality be damned.

The article makes a fairly compelling case that they're not better off. Do you have anything better than an argument from incredulity?

The article simply makes the case that they aren't making more money, but it doesn't make the case that they're not better off.
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