Increasing income inequality does not necessarily imply that. In fact, the US poverty rate has been more or less stable for the past 50 years[1]. And the worldwide poverty rate is dropping like a stone.
[1] To be clear, I very much view this as a failure given how much richer the US has become in the same period. Nevertheless, it is not true (or at least not clear) that the portion of people who are able to actualize their potential is falling.
This statistic is misleading. The U.S. government defines the poverty line based on a 1955 model of spending patterns. It's completely inadequate for modern needs.
The poverty line for a family of four is defined as a household income of $26,200. Any reasonable person knows it's impossible to pay rent and feed and clothe two adults and two kids on less than $2200 a month. Nevermind owning a home, having a car, saving for emergencies or retiring. Yet the U.S. government does not consider that to be poverty. From Wikipedia:
> Most experts and the public agree that the official poverty line in the United States is substantially lower than the actual cost of basic needs. In particular, a 2017 Urban Institute study found that 61% of non-elderly adults earning between 100–200% of the poverty line reported at least one material hardship, not significantly different from those below the poverty line. The cause of the discrepancy is believed to be an outdated model of spending patterns based on actual spending in the year 1955; the number and proportion of material needs has risen substantially since then.
The reality is that poverty in the U.S. is increasing. It has been for decades.
> Any reasonable person knows it's impossible to pay rent and feed and clothe two adults and two kids on less than $2200 a month.
Step outside of your bubble. This is very feasible in low CoL areas all over the US. And remember that’s the line so it’s going to be difficult, but it can be done.
The lowest CoL areas in the US are low because nobody wants to live their because there is no money to be made their either. 80% of Americans live in urban areas where the jobs are.
> The lowest CoL areas in the US are low because nobody wants to live their because there is no money to be made their either. 80% of Americans live in urban areas where the jobs are.
I’m talking about basically every city outside of the Bay Area, LA, Seattle, and NYC. $1000/mo can you a livable apartment in most of the US cities.
The poverty line is supposed to mark the very bottom of the scale, not the middle. $2200 is still a ton of purchasing power compared to almost any other country.
> $2200 is still a ton of purchasing power compared to almost any other country.
$2200 is the income, not the purchasing power. Purchasing power is income normalized by domestic price level. This isn't to nitpick, it actually means purchasing power is quite different when compared to other rich nations. For example PP in the US is 25% lower than in Germany: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/PA.NUS.PRVT.PP?location...
In other words: With a household income of $2200 in the US and a household income of $1650 in Germany you can buy about the same amount of things.
The more important point however: Most rich countries use the concept of relative poverty as the poverty threshold. This has the nice benefit of automatically updating itself if wage and thus price level increases. It usually is defined as 60% of the median income.
US median income in 2019 was $31133. For a household of two adults that means the poverty line for the US should be set at $3113[0] - quite the difference.
You’re saying the poverty line should follow median income, and that’s exactly what I argued against. The poverty line marks poverty, as in having trouble eating properly, losing opportunities; not an inability to pay your car financing.
Germany is one of the top world powers. For the purpose of this discussion the US and Germany are equals. I was thinking more of Ghana, Argentina, South Sudan, Kazakhstan, etc. you know, the other 95% of the word.
This is so out of touch I barely have the will to argue :/
In the small city where I live a 2 BR apartment will run you at least 1200 and they wont rent to you unless you take home about 2.5x that.
After taxes someone or 2 someone's making 26,200 would be taking home 835 every 2 weeks. Realistically speaking even if anyone would rent to you, which they wont, you couldn't afford to pay rent, keep the lights on, and eat.
You are right of course if they could figure out a way to make french fries at McDonalds remotely while living in some poorer part of the world they would totally have substantial buying power.
What you mean is called absolute poverty in the social sciences. What most other people talk about is called relative poverty. Almost all OECD countries measure relative poverty as a share of median income.
Hell if you like to sleep indoors in the urban areas where 80% of the US population lives and most of the jobs are 26k with a family of 4 is pretty close to absolute poverty too.
Americans interested in inveighing against the rich don’t want to hear or think about people in other countries. Because if they do, then that means they are the rich and it muddies all their narratives about good guys and bad guys.
This is the same reason you see people talking about the .1% and then billionaires. Because they or people they care about fall into the 1% or the .1% so they have to push the boogeyman further out.
Income equality tells you nothing about the conditions of the middle or lower class. An economy in which all classes grow income and wealth can still increase inequality if it allows more people than before to become rich.
> Income equality tells you nothing about the conditions of the middle or lower class.
There's a graph in TFA showing that, after adjusting for inflation, the per-individual wealth of the middle and lower classes decreased by 20% and 45% respectively between 2001 and 2016. The individual wealth of the upper class increased by 33% in this time period.
