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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?

#81

Post by wutbrodo »

happyscrappy wrote: post #72
jdlshore wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fairly clear from the article, and from the report it's quoting [1], that the discussion is about wages, with "poverty" used as a shorthand. The source report also says that "the poverty level wage in 2013 was $11.45." I was able to find that definition with a casual skim of the source report. (It's possible that they go into more depth about their methods; I didn't care to look.) Your inability to find it, comb…

There is nothing hyperbolic about saying the poor are better off today.

Not that the burden of proof is necessarily on your claim, but do you have any data on this? I know it may seem obvious enough that the burden of proof is on the other side, but given that the costs of all the essentials (healthcare, education, childcare, transportation) have tended towards increasing costs while "toys" have tended in the opposite direction.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/its-expe...

The data in this article is on the timescale of the last decade, but it's enough that your claim doesn't really stand on the basis of being self-evident.

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

#82

Post by malyk »

dllthomas wrote: post #58
malyk wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"We need to find a way to help those people until this new class of jobs people imagine will appear actually become reality." Without overly discouraging them from looking for those new jobs, because that's an important part of how we create new classes of jobs. Personally, I think a low basic income is our best bet, but I'm eager to hear other suggestions.

I agree with the low(ish) basic income for a variety of reasons.

But I think expecting the people who are automated out of jobs to go and create entirely new categories of job on there own is being extremely over optimistic. So, between the time that they are replaced and the time that new categories of jobs become available something /more/ than just a basic income is necessary. As more and more automate-able jobs become automated there will be less and less employment opportunities available for the displaced workers until these new categories of job become available.

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

#83

Post by fancyketchup »

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.

But also vastly reduced pollution. Popular Mechanics had a few articles about the extent of the problem in Los Angeles (which you can read for free):

http://books.google.com/books?id=SNkDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA178&dq=sm...

http://books.google.com/books?id=xdwDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA65&dq=smo...

Now, it's true that pollution is still generally worse in poor areas compared to wealthier areas, but the pollution issue alone makes me prefer a "poor" lifestyle today over a "middle class" one from 50 or 60 years ago. We also have additional consumer protections for food and medicine compared to 60 years ago, which makes it hard to compare products across decades.

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

#84

Post by dllthomas »

malyk wrote: post #82
dllthomas wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We need to find a way to help those people until this new class of jobs people imagine will appear actually become reality." Without overly discouraging them from looking for those new jobs, because that's an important part of how we create new classes of jobs. Personally, I think a low basic income is our best bet, but I'm eager to hear other suggestions.

I agree with the low(ish) basic income for a variety of reasons. But I think expecting the people who are automated out of jobs to go and create entirely new categories of job on there own is being extremely over optimistic. So, between the time that they are replaced and the time that new categories of jobs become available something /more/ than just a basic income is necessary. As more and more automate-able jobs b…

"But I think expecting the people who are automated out of jobs to go and create entirely new categories of job on there own is being extremely over optimistic."

To be clear, I (most emphatically) do not mean "Ths ese people should just go create new jobs - lazy bums, jeeze!" People looking for ways to help others, in order to get ahead, is an important part of how we find new jobs - but until they're found most people will be failing and we don't want them suffering to be sure.

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

#85

Post by MarkMc »

sharemywin wrote: post #77
MarkMc wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why you reject 'supply-side story' things like TV sets, microwave ovens and internet access. I'd certainly feel worse off if you took away my TV - or replaced it with a 1970's black-and-white version. Isn't it obvious that the cost and quality of TVs affects people's "standard of living"?

So you'd trade your TV for adequate healthcare? It's not that those things don't have value it's just compared to the real issues for someone in poverty they don't add up to all that much.

Not healthcare, but I would rather live in a house half its current size than give up TV and internet.

People living in abject poverty also enormously value their TVs. Here is an example of a man who goes hungry in order to watch TV, from the book Poor Economics [1]:

We asked Oucha Mbarbk, a man we met in a remote village in Morocco, what he would do if he had more money. He said he would buy more food. Then we asked him what he would do if he had even more money. He said he would buy better tasting food. We were starting to feel very bad for him and his family, when we noticed a television, a parabolic antenna, and a DVD player in the room where we were sitting. We asked him why he had bought all these things if he felt the family did not have enough to eat. He laughed, and said, “Oh, but television is more important than food!”

If you think the cost of rent and house prices affect the standard of living then so should the availability of TVs and internet.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Poor-Economics-Radical-Rethinking-Pove...

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

#86

Post by [deleted] »

sharemywin wrote: post #77
MarkMc wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why you reject 'supply-side story' things like TV sets, microwave ovens and internet access. I'd certainly feel worse off if you took away my TV - or replaced it with a 1970's black-and-white version. Isn't it obvious that the cost and quality of TVs affects people's "standard of living"?

So you'd trade your TV for adequate healthcare? It's not that those things don't have value it's just compared to the real issues for someone in poverty they don't add up to all that much.

[deleted]

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

#87

Post by Turing_Machine »

sharemywin wrote: post #77
MarkMc wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why you reject 'supply-side story' things like TV sets, microwave ovens and internet access. I'd certainly feel worse off if you took away my TV - or replaced it with a 1970's black-and-white version. Isn't it obvious that the cost and quality of TVs affects people's "standard of living"?

So you'd trade your TV for adequate healthcare? It's not that those things don't have value it's just compared to the real issues for someone in poverty they don't add up to all that much.

A great deal of what we call "adequate healthcare" didn't even exist in 1970.

Cancer was essentially a death sentence back then. So was a heart attack.

No MRI. No CAT scan. No minimally-invasive surgery.

They were still performing major surgery to "treat" ulcers back then. Now we know they're caused by bacteria and can clear them up with no surgery needed.

Really poor people in the United States do get free healthcare. It's called "Medicaid".

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

#88

Post by Turing_Machine »

akgerber wrote: post #76
lucb1e wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now it's possible though. I'm not sure it was like that in the past. Maybe it was, I'm not saying it wasn't, but from what I heard people in general were a lot less wealthy in the past. The bottom 20% of society (in terms of income) still walks around in rich clothes compared to the top 20% a few hundred years ago while not working more hours.

Walmart clothes (the clothes of today's poor) aren't particularly nice compared to hand-tailored suits (the clothes of the upper crust hundreds of years ago, and presently).

Today's poor almost all have numerous outfits (whether from Walmart or elsewhere). Poor people hundreds of years ago typically had one, count 'em, one garment. Maybe if they were slightly better off they'd have two (one for church and one for everyday wear, with the older one being rotated out for use as rags from time to time).

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

#89

Post by MarkMc »

coldtea wrote: post #66
jlarocco wrote: post #4

Looks like they're moving the goal posts a little bit here. "Poverty" today is not the same as "poverty" decades ago. The standard of living for people in poverty today is (a lot) higher than the standard of living for people in poverty decades ago.

> "Poverty" today is not the same as "poverty" decades ago. So? Would you be satisfied living with the sanitation, health-care, technology level, etc of "decades ago" today? There's no absolute "poverty level". You can perhaps starve (that is absolute), or be homeless (also absolute), but there's no such thing as absolute poverty level against which to measure all ages. You have to measure poverty as it relates to wh…

What do you think of this [1] measure of Poverty? It is based on questions like: Has a child died in your family? Do you have electricity? Do you cook with wood, charcoal or dung? Seems pretty absolute to me.

[1] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multidimensional_Poverty_Inde...

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

#90

Post by gadders »

coldtea wrote: post #64
gadders wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, because if people live better than dustbowl era farmers, we should all be satisfied and not check if they got a relative improvement compared to society's riches as well. With this logic, anybody living better than a caveman should be grateful, even if he has to sleep in the streets and can't afford health care, because, hey, cavement couldn't afford those things either.

So I think if people are living a better lifestyle in absolute terms, then yes they should be grateful. And yes, we should always try and improve this.

Whether their personal wealth is a larger or smaller proportion of global riches is irrelevant.

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