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Do 5 Million Americans Really Live in Third World Poverty?
National Review ^ | 03/29/2018 | By ROBERT RECTOR & JAMIE BRYAN HALL

Posted on 03/30/2018 6:54:19 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

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To: freedomjusticeruleoflaw
Take it from someone who regularly visits Portland, Seattle, San Fran, and L.A., it’s true.

You mean the druggies? They shouldn't count in any statistical survey.

21 posted on 03/30/2018 7:52:09 AM PDT by Go Gordon
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

That’s why we have sooo many in CA (Crazy America).


22 posted on 03/30/2018 7:57:06 AM PDT by rey
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To: Lurkinanloomin

Yeah that is likely.


23 posted on 03/30/2018 7:59:06 AM PDT by EdnaMode
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To: SeekAndFind

American ‘poverty’ = Living like a king in any third world country on earth


24 posted on 03/30/2018 8:01:27 AM PDT by SMARTY ("Nearly all men can stand adversity...to test a man's character, give him power." A. Lincoln)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

A 25 lb sack of rice/flour is about $18. That’s enough calories for well over a month (eating nothing else).
You can eat quite well on $1/meal, with a little care in shopping.

If your housing costs are practically $0 (own property outright, or mundane squatting), and live in a very temperate climate (no HVAC costs), with no dependents, you can live _very_ cheaply. Go read “The Man Who Quit Money” for an extreme example.

I also have to wonder if they’re including welfare benefits (easily totaling well above the poverty line), or considering people who live on straight savings (if you’ve got $1M cash stashed, your “income” can be $0 and still live well). Leeching off others is also workable (couch surfing works for many) with no income. Then there’s dependents: are children included in the numbers? mine don’t earn anything, yet live quite comfortably.

Then, of course, there’s people who just plain eek out a bare existence thru begging, dumpster-diving, or just haven’t expired from circumstances yet. In a nation of 350,000,000, it’s not absurd to assume ~1.5% of the population simply lives on practically nothing.


25 posted on 03/30/2018 8:04:08 AM PDT by ctdonath2 (The Red Queen wasn't kidding.)
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To: SeekAndFind

I submit that not one person in America is truly third world poor. Not one. Even the guy on the corner with his sign. They usually have cigarettes and bottles of Gatorade.


26 posted on 03/30/2018 8:04:10 AM PDT by cyclotic (Trump tweets are the only news source you can trust.)
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To: SMARTY

The official US “poverty line” is at the 80th percentile of world income (purchasing parity adjusted).
One would be hard-pressed to find conditions where cumulative welfare+income value does not well exceed that line.


27 posted on 03/30/2018 8:11:50 AM PDT by ctdonath2 (The Red Queen wasn't kidding.)
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To: WayneS

Just like the homeless went away under Clinton and Obama, but somehow resurfaced under Reagan, Bush 41/43 and now Trump.


28 posted on 03/30/2018 8:12:52 AM PDT by ealgeone
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To: SeekAndFind

In my first job, my income would have placed me in the poverty category. What it didn’t reveal though, was I was living at home and going to school at the time.


29 posted on 03/30/2018 8:14:46 AM PDT by ealgeone
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To: cyclotic

And, somehow, a cell phone...


30 posted on 03/30/2018 8:17:35 AM PDT by WayneS (An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. - Winston Churchill.)
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To: ctdonath2

Welfare people pool together and live better than I do.
Not to mention they don’t pay $1000/month for insurance.
Cry me a river.


31 posted on 03/30/2018 8:25:05 AM PDT by GnuThere
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To: SeekAndFind
Spending less than $4 per day

Does that count their EBT cards, government housing and Cadillac payments?

32 posted on 03/30/2018 8:34:46 AM PDT by trebb (I stopped picking on the mentally ill hypocrites who pose as conservatives...mostly ;-})
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To: DownInFlames
Yep. They were imported from Mexico.

Poverty is Mexico's major export.....

33 posted on 03/30/2018 8:36:53 AM PDT by varon (“Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Anyone Who Threatens It”)
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To: SeekAndFind

Only someone who’s never seen third world level poverty, i.e. Port au Prince, Kolkata, the slums of Cairo, etc. could be so stupid as to compare anything in the USA with it. I’ve seen all three and can’t recall any grossly obese women with EBT cards pushing fully loaded shopping carts out to their cars.


34 posted on 03/30/2018 8:37:54 AM PDT by katana
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To: SeekAndFind

We have an opiod problem. It’s become a homelessness issue.

As for poverty, we have no idea what that looks like. India’s got a poverty problem, and now Venezuela’s got one (Thank You Socialism!)

I’ve been to Nigeria, which SHOULD NOT have one, they’ve got all the natural resources you could ever need to sustain a first world economy. They’ve got a poverty problem in a way they shouldn’t. (Thanks Islam!)


35 posted on 03/30/2018 8:41:27 AM PDT by RinaseaofDs
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To: GnuThere

SOME do. That’s the point. There are lots of ways to take a strict sub-$4/day income and leverage it with all kinds of welfare/charity/pooling/etc into what is practically much more. Of that alleged 5,000,000 I have to wonder how many are _actually_ sub-$4/day and not hiding additional leveraging.


36 posted on 03/30/2018 8:46:12 AM PDT by ctdonath2 (The Red Queen wasn't kidding.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Do 5 Million Americans Really Live in Third World Poverty?.....Absolutely NOT. We have no poor in the US.


37 posted on 03/30/2018 8:56:45 AM PDT by Safetgiver (Islam makes barbarism look genteel.)
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To: Safetgiver

Many are intellectually poor and judge poor.


38 posted on 03/30/2018 9:19:12 AM PDT by hal ogen (First Amendment or Reeducation Camp?)
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To: SeekAndFind

Poor households routinely report spending $2.40 for every $1 of income the Census says they have.

The left claims that one in 25 families with children live in “extreme poverty” on less than $2 per person per day. Government surveys of self-reported spending by families show the actual number is one in 4,469, not one in 25. The typical family allegedly in “extreme poverty” reports spending $25 for every $1 of income the left claims they have.


39 posted on 03/30/2018 9:23:47 AM PDT by tbw2
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To: SeekAndFind

In other News, the Safety Net is now officially a Hammock.


40 posted on 03/30/2018 9:29:44 AM PDT by Kickass Conservative ( An Armed Society is a Polite Society. An Unarmed Society is North Korea.)
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