An exaggeration or an understatement?

[zahc]

From a college textbook, with no real numbers backing it up:

"Severe poverty and deprivation exist on a massive scale today in America..."

What do you think?

[wingnutx]

True. Several of my neighbors only have one color TV!

[zahc]

That's along the lines of what I was thinking myself when I read it.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Anyone who's travelled outside the country, and especially outside the West, knows how utterly untrue that comment is.  NOBODY in America is really all that poor, all things considered.  

A rising tide lifts all boats.  When those of us with a conscince and a modicum of ambition work to improve our lives, we're also working to improve the lives of the least among us.  Wingnutx is right, these days poverty in America means not having a color TV.

[Declaration Day]

In this country, one can have a place to live, a car, a refrigerator with food in it, and plenty of clothes to wear......and be considered poor.

[Sindawe]

I'll believe that severe poverty and deprivation exists on a massive scale in the U.S. when I stop seeing the hords of obese poor waddling out of Wal-Mart with carts loaded up with electronics, plastic junk and pre-packaged/processed food.

[The Rabbi]

It's true.

There is a poverty of common sense and deprivation of understanding.  It is massive and growing.

[Guest]

Does the text book provide a definition of what it consideres those terms to mean?

[griz]

America does have poverty, but to call the scale "massive" is just plain wrong.  Maybe they mean a "massive" number of people are deprived of excessive wealth?

By the way, in America we have overweight "poor" people.  In a lot of countries being poor means you are literally straving.  Our definition of poor is really pretty arogant.

[garrettwc]

Wingnutx is right, these days poverty in America means not having a color TV.

Actually, if you ever visit some folks in so called "impoverished" neighborhoods, they have a big screen color TV and cable.

[wingnutx]

There are some actually dirt-poor in America, but they are few and far between.

I go into a lot of truly horrific homes doing my EMT work, but most of them would be a palace in a lot of the Philipines.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

There are some actually dirt-poor in America, but they are few and far between.

I go into a lot of truly horrific homes doing my EMT work, but most of them would be a palace in a lot of the Philipines.

I used to work as a real estate inspector, and I had opportunity to see some truly horrific homes as well.  The thing about those homes that always amazed me is that the residents universally could have improved those homes into something livable and comfortable, if only they'd wanted to.  A little bit of work cleaning things up could have made a world of difference.  Money and expensive/difficult repairs probably would have helped, but they weren't strictly necessary most times.  These people didn't have to live in squalor, but they did anyway because of their own complacency, apathy, and plain old laziness.

I'm convinced that in this country poverty is a state of mind, not an unavoidable physical necessity.

[onions!]

Maybe it's just a matter of scale.
There are about 300 million (legal )people that live here now,no?
If even one third of one percent live in poverty* then thats one million people.Seems like a massive enough number to me.Three hundred times the amount killed on Sept 11th,2001.Twenty times the American deaths in Vietnam.A few times the number of folks in the city where I live.Probably a few times(or a few hundred) the local towns'populations of most of us here.You get the picture.

*No I don't know the actual percentage.

[Perd Hapley]

"Severe poverty and deprivation exist on a massive scale today in America..."

Severe deprivation of fathers, yes.  But SEVERE poverty on a MASSIVE scale?  That's statist propaganda, no question, and written by someone who's spent very little to no time in the third world.  

I'll wager that textbook also speaks of a "growing gulf between rich and poor."  I don't know if that is true or not.

[Art Eatman]

41Mag, absent mental problems, most of those folks you speak of are in that condition as a result of their own personal choices through their lives; and/or, of course their parents' choices and inculcations.

Way too many people choose a case of beer over a gallon of paint--or a broom, mop, and soap...

After my year in the Philippines in 1949/1950, seeing the aftermath of a war, and some 15 months in South Korea in 1954/1955, I think I have at least a clue about true poverty.  Same for many rural areas in northern Mexico, today.  Heck, most issues of National Geographic show photos of people who are truly in poverty.

I don't see many Americans living in shanties made of waxed cardboard...

I've been poor, but never in poverty.  And I danged well knew that a self-administered dose of GetOffMyButt would solve the being-poor puzzle.

Art

[El Tejon]

Why are the poor so fat in America?

The "poor" drive cars, have free access to medical car, have cable television, and eat and eat and eat some more.

[HankB]

The USA has the richest poor people in the world.

[roo_ster]

From a college textbook, with no real numbers backing it up:

"Severe poverty and deprivation exist on a massive scale today in America..."

What do you think?

I stopped getting all teary-eyed over most of the poor after working in a housing project one summer.  I compare that to what I've seen overseas & I am even less likely to get all weepy.

Some very small number of folks really are hosed by no action or fault of their own.  I would trust private charity to sort the deserving wheat from the chaff.

[onions!]

41Mag, absent mental problems, most of those folks you speak of are in that condition as a result of their own personal choices through their lives; and/or, of course their parents' choices and inculcations.

Way too many people choose a case of beer over a gallon of paint--or a broom, mop, and soap...

After my year in the Philippines in 1949/1950, seeing the aftermath of a war, and some 15 months in South Korea in 1954/1955, I think I have at least a clue about true poverty.  Same for many rural areas in northern Mexico, today.  Heck, most issues of National Geographic show photos of people who are truly in poverty.

I don't see many Americans living in shanties made of waxed cardboard...

I've been poor, but never in poverty.  And I danged well knew that a self-administered dose of GetOffMyButt would solve the being-poor puzzle.

Art

Actually,I didn't state an opinion about the truthfullness of the stats.Nor was I intending a relative comparison of US poor vs. international poor.

Rather than just refer to most of the "poor" as n'er do wells who did "it" to themselves,I chose to look @ the statement from the perspective that "massive" is relative.& then threw out some figures that might show my point of view.

It really has nothing to do w/how they arrived that way & what they need to do to get out of their situation.

95% of the people surveyed think that Al Gore should be President.No one said that the poll was 39 people @ a coffee house in San Francisco.Broad statements can mean many things.
YMMV.

[Tallpine]

Actually, it is pretty much against the law to be really poor in most places in America.

Try living without running water or electricity, and the authorities will be swooping down on you, especially if kids are involved.

We used to live in a 30' trailer on our logging lease.  Water came from a spring, and the "facilities" were a "little house" in the trees.  But we were pretty rich compared to the people in Africa drinking water out of muddy puddles and walking miles to collect a few sticks for firewood.

[Jamisjockey]

....These people didn't have to live in squalor, but they did anyway because of their own complacency, apathy, and plain old laziness.

I'm convinced that in this country poverty is a state of mind, not an unavoidable physical necessity.

I'm not even sure why I try and post on APS...someone usually beats me to the punch around here!
We have a lazy apathetic country.  I've been in truly poor neighborhoods in Mexico, where residents live without electricty, running water, or cable tv ....as well as no sewage or trash service, no hospitals.....

[ilbob]

From a college textbook, with no real numbers backing it up:

"Severe poverty and deprivation exist on a massive scale today in America..."

What do you think?

if you include South and Central America in "America" I would agree.

[Waitone]

We have no concept of world class poverty.  Our expectations are so high we can not possibly identify with the truly poor of the earth.  Do we have needy people in the US?  YooBetcha we do.  Is it the equal of Brazilian slums, or those found in India or Bangladesh, of Egypts' city of the dead?  For anyone to say what this enlightened source profers is to insult the truly poor.  America has no concept of what true poverty is like.  Want a good picture of poverty on a world class scale?  Picture refugees fleeing Darfur in the front of Arabs.  They literally have the clothes on their back and that is all.  Everything else was destroyed.  That is poverty.

[Antibubba]

I have to surf with a dial-up connection, so I really do have to agree with the premise.