But I have a gripe about these statistics, even though I think they are correct. I am really sick of seeing statistics on how many people own a color TV as compared to 40 years ago.
First of all, there are no black and white TVs anymore. ALL TVS ARE COLOR. Secondly, TVs are DAM CHEAP! If you want to measure affluence, count how many people have a rear projection TV or plasma TVs or a blackberry or highspeed internet service or a zero radius turn riding lawn mower or a digital camcorder, or a sony playstation3.
This color TV stupid crap really gets on my nerves. I bought my COLOR TV USED FOR 35 BUCKS! I guess that makes me rich though, doesn’t it??!?!!
I think the point is the standard of living in the U.S. is much higher than the rest of the world. Your 35 bucks you spent on your used color TV is the equivalent of one month's wages in many parts of the world.
The fact that you listed all of those “toys” as a sign of wealth is very telling. Perhaps instead you should look for a measure of poverty. Such as whether you had at least one meal yesterday. The “Poor” in the U.S. are often obese.
Your color TV beats the TV my parents bought in 1950 all holler. This article makes clear that the "poor" eat - or could, for the same price - as good a diet as I did growing up. And if they show up at the emergency room they have to be treated, with procedures/medicines which were not available to my family when I was a kid.The fact that you're too cheap to pay full price - a whole $60 or so - for a TV doesn't change the fact that you have a good (compared to anything I had before I was 30, great) TV. Poor people in my day didn't have TV, my parents had decent jobs and we didn't, until I was ten years old. Today "poor" people have not merely color TV, they have cable.
Look, if you're so het up about escalating the standard of what it takes not to be "poor," tell Hillary that the standard for "quality" health care she prattles about constantly is woefully inadequate. Because (unless she gets to "fix" the health care system first) standards of health care in 2040 will be such as to make 2007 medicine as unacceptable then as 1970 medicine would be unacceptable today.
I would go so far as to say that Americans are not poor at all compared to what I have seen in my travels and reading threads like this give the impression that Americans have in fact become fat, lazy and spoiled.
See how many poor in other countries have TVs be it color or black & white. Having a TV doesn’t make you rich but almost definately can exclude you from what I consider poor. Being able to spend part of your budget on entertainment alone almost removes the aspect of ‘poor’ from the book. Lower class? Yes. Poor? No.