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When The Poor Aren’t Poor Enough

Posted by on Aug 19th, 2011 in News, Religion | 3 comments
Number in Poverty and Poverty Rate: 1959 to 20...

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About a month ago, the Heritage Foundation, a notoriously right wing think tank, released a report that attempts to redefine what it means to be poor in America.

Each year for the past two decades, the U.S. Census Bureau has reported that over 30 million Americans were living in “poverty.” In recent years, the Census has reported that one in seven Americans are poor. But what does it mean to be “poor” in America? How poor are America’s poor?

Notice the scare quotes around poverty and poor in the above paragraph.  It’s intended to give the impression that the poor, defined by the census as a family of 4 with an income under $22,050/year, aren’t really all that poor.

Why does the Heritage Foundation say this?  Well, let’s take a look.

Each year, the U.S. Census Bureau releases its annual report on income and poverty.  This report, though widely publicized by the press, provides only a bare count of the number of Americans who are allegedly poor. It provides no data on or description of their actual living conditions.

While poor households were slightly less likely to have conveniences than the general population, most poor households had a wide range of amenities. As Chart 2 shows, 78 percent of poor households had air conditioning, 64 percent had cable or satellite TV, and 38 percent had a personal computer.

Oh, heavens to Betsy!  The poor are availing themselves of modern conveniences such as air conditioning (78%), stoves (97%), washing machines (62%), and gasp refrigerators (99%).

So, you see, according to the Heritage Foundation, the poor are only “allegedly poor” because their living conditions don’t match those one might have found on an 1800′s wagon train expedition.

It’s an inherently ridiculous argument, one heavily steeped in feelings of privilege.  You see, for the most part, to conservatives, if you’re poor, you have no business enjoying one single, solitary luxury that they have.  If you do, then it’s obvious you’re not poor, you’re simply lazy, unmotivated, uneducated, wasteful, animals (as Ann Coulter says) or scavenging raccoons (as the Nebraska Republican Attorney General said ).

So, just for fun, I went to CraigsList today to see if I could find some of these ‘modern conveniences’, such as TVs, an Xbox, and computer, and how much they would cost me.

I found Xbox 360′s for, on average, $150, about $100 less than BestBuy sells refurbished units for.

I found 32″ tube televisions for anywhere from $25-$60.

I found desktop computers and laptops for ~$100.  Not necessarily the newest MacBook Air, but something that is more than sufficient.  Shoot, my desktop computer is probably about 5 years old itself.

Then the plutocrats over at Heritage double down with the following:

Having determined that the amenity score of the median poor household was 14, we then examined all poor households with that score to determine which amenities appeared most frequently within the median poor group.

  • The analysis showed that median poor households most frequently had the following 14 items: air conditioning, a clothes washer, a clothes dryer, ceiling fans, and a cordless phone.
  • For entertainment, these households had two color televisions, cable or satellite TV, a DVD player, and a VCR.
  • In the kitchen, these poor households had a refrigerator, an oven and stove, a microwave, and a coffee maker.

How dare they!

Oh, those sad, pathetic poor people…. they actually have to make their own coffee instead of guzzling a $5 cup of overroasted Starbucks twice a day!

So, you see, the poor aren’t really poor…. they’re “poor”…. at least to the Heritage Foundation.  By putting forward this argument, along with the polemic “51% of households pay no income taxes”, they’re lobbying for the plutocracy and the continual growth of income inequality present in the US.

Sad, really, for a political division that considers themselves to be “Christians”.

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  • http://twitter.com/priestlygoth Larry Kamphausen

    This probably will drive home your point even more, but I quote the study on an (their?) alternate definition of poverty : “Yet if poverty means lacking nutritious food, adequate warm housing, and clothing for a family…”
    Which leads me to think that here is an opening of a conversation of who needs (deserves?) assistance from government?  Now, there is perhaps also a privileged attitude that the government should not help poor people so that the poor can then provide amenities and entertainments for themselves and their children.
    But I do find it deeply troubling that modern appliances are seen as something possession of which means that you are obviously not poor.  As someone who has rented housing, it is common even among low rent apartments for a stove and refrigerator to be provided with the apartment by the landlord.  I mention this since its seems to me that part of what needs to be countered is an attitude that says we want to help the poor but we should not make them too comfortable.  But why? is it not that poverty isn’t seen as a consequence of systemic injustice but a penalty for not being industrious enough, or something like that.  
    On some level one should welcome this sort of questioning of poverty for it gives us all the opportunity to question our assumptions and presuppositions about such things.   I wonder if a more irenic tone, that acknowledges the need to talk about “what is poverty”.  Asking the question of what is or is not poverty doesn’t seem wrong to me.  Even questioning how or why census data so categorizes things isn’t wrong.  I disagree with their definitions, and thus solutions.  But as presented I think it can be argued and discussed and not merely dismissed as an absurd question.  which it seems you have done in your concluding paragraph.

  • Anonymous

    I find that I agree. I don’t think having the discussion about what is poverty to be out of line. I agree that some of their definitions (A/C, Fridge, Stove, etc) are ridiculous for exactly the reasons you mentioned.

    I totally believe that poverty is seen as a consequence of personal actions, and in some cases it is, but to think of it in systemic terms is like grabbing the third rail with both hands while standing in a bucket of water. It’s just something we do not do. Why? I believe it’s because then some of the responsibility becomes ours instead of all “theirs”.

    To be honest, I think the US poverty line is way too conservative. While it’s adjusted for Alaska and Hawaii, it’s constant for the lower 48. It doesn’t take an economist to tell you that an income of, say $50,000/year goes a lot further in places like Kansas, Mississippi, etc., than it does in California, New York, or Washington state.

    I think we need to start looking at things both in totality and in pieces. When the Wisconsin protests were going on, some conservative friends of mine were mocking how much the teachers made and what their benefits are worth without ever considering the cost of living. I can tell you that, from a cost of living comparator, I would have to make ~13% more in Madison to maintain the same standard of living I have here in Arizona.

  • Larry Kamphausen

    So let’s have this discussion here, shall we.
    How might we then talk both about personal responsibility and systemic causes for poverty.  I think your point may indicate that personal responsibility can only be looked at in terms of the causes of poverty if we know how and in what ways there are or are not systemic barriers to opportunity for any individual or group.  sometimes that is measurable and easily demonstrable, though in other case that can be less clear.  For instance I just talked with someone about a person on welfare in California who has chosen not to be retrained. But is this because he believes that retraining is pointless because of systemic limits to opportunities available.  The person I was talking to wasn’t taking into account that the structures that shuffled him into the low paying jobs he can no longer do, has him convinced (rightly or wrongly) that he isn’t able to do anything else.  
    So far we here agree that having A/C, fridge, Stove etc. shouldn’t mean that one isn’t poor, and that poverty shouldn’t be relegated to abject poverty as the Heritage foundation has offered.  While I think your point about taking both local cost of living and in general.  Though it does seem in terms of Federal Government policies a general definition is probably needed, while individual states probably need to work in more local senses of it.

    My problem with the papers limiting definition of poverty is that it doesn’t take into account that relative to the general culture things like A/C, refrigerators, maybe even laundry machines and stoves aren’t luxuries, but would be seen as necessities.   But I don’t see anyone economically feeding a family without a stove.  its not like most apartments or houses have fireplaces in which one could cook, and as said in the post above that be very 18th century.  Also, how would you preserve food to feed ones family without a refrigerator.  And I could go on.

    But maybe this line of questioning again simply strengthens the point of the above post:  this is a privileged look at these things seeking to protect us from the shock of looking at the systemic issues and our complicity in them.

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