Today's Poor Richer than 1971's Middle Class

Who knew? Domino's did.

Published on January 3, 2007 By greywar In Home & Family

There is a great article discussing Alan Reynold's new book, "Income and Wealth" over at TCS daily that prompted me to remember this. As a long time employee of Domino's pizza I already knew that America's "poor" are actually quite rich. Let me briefly explain.

Each week as a Domino's driver I would routinely delivery the most pizza to trailer park homes, rent-controlled welfare housing, and low-income apartments. Thats right, not to the houses by the country club, not to up scale apartments, and not even to soldiers but rather the working poor. Our "working poor" can afford to have food cooked by someone else and then pay to have it driven to their doorstep. On top of this they usually tip! now I have been in some countries that actually have a class of "working poor" and they couldn't imagine how wonderful a life of "American poverty" would be. The working poor in many other countries do not live in furnished trailers, or spacious rent-controlled apartments, no they live in shanty's on hillsides and scavenge for better plastic to put on the roof.

Our poor can shop for groceries at 7-11, talk to their relatives on cell-phones that are so cheap as to be virtually free, buy lottery tickets by the dozen, or save that money for enough malt liquor to choke a horse. Don't beleive me? Just go hang out at the 7-11 next to any low-rent district or rent-controlled welfare project. Add that anecdotal experience to this from the article :

"Reynolds makes it a slam-dunk by citing data from the aforementioned Cox and Alm and from Kirk Johnson showing that the average poor family in 2001 did as well as or better than the average family in 1971 in ownership of motor vehicles, air conditioners, color TVs, refrigerators, VCRs, personal computers, and cell phones. Of course, the last three didn't exist in 1971, but that's part of the point. When poor families can afford what even middle-income families couldn't imagine having 30 years earlier, aren't things working out pretty well?"

Well yes, yes they are actually.

Comments (Page 1)

Dr Guy

on Jan 03, 2007

Poverty in America is a misnomer. What they talk about when someone says poverty is the poor. And since the poor are defined by a bell curve, there is no way to eliminate them, no matter how much money you pour at the problem.

jennifer1

on Jan 03, 2007

Take a walk through the shanti towns of Mumbai and see what poor is....

Moderateman

on Jan 03, 2007

This is one of the things that really chap my lips, the so called poor of america live like kings and queens compared to how the poor of 2/3rds of the worlds poor live.

greywar

on Jan 03, 2007

the so called poor of america live like kings and queens

It has a great deal to do with people's financial management decisions. Thing is when the government is the one supplying their incomes, the government should probably also be making al their day-to-day decisons too. Send them groceries each month instead of food money. This way it doesn't get spent on 5 dollar 7-11 sandwiches and lotto tickets.

There simply is no real critical thought being taught to Americans at any level.

Shelly

on Jan 03, 2007

30 million Americans are so poor they don't eat every day. That's a fact. I didn't see any facts in your article.

Dr Guy

on Jan 03, 2007

30 million Americans are so poor they don't eat every day. That's a fact. I didn't see any facts in your article.

I dont see any facts in your statement either.

greywar

on Jan 03, 2007

30 million Americans are so poor they don't eat every day. That's a fact.

No thats called shooting your mouth off without proving your assertion. This sounds very much liek something a high schooler heard from a leftist teacher without much regard for the actual facts involved.

- You claim that 10% of America doesn't eat everyday. US Population figures from here. This would of course require them to not only earn less than $1 a day but also to stay away from the free food centers (national charity, churches, and municipal welfare) in nearly every city and town across the nation.

Then you don't prove anything. That's why we don't give you any credence.

1 in 10? I think not. Bring a good source or go home and bitch to your less critically thinking circle of friends. Did you even know the population of the U.S. when you posted? I doubt it.

bakerstreet

on Jan 03, 2007

"30 million Americans are so poor they don't eat every day. That's a fact."

lmao. That's 10% of our population. You are saying one in ten poeple in America are so poor they don't eat every day. Oddly, we have the fattest poor in the world, so fat that their health care costs are astronomical.

Have you ever seen images of people who are starving to death? The only people I have seen that looked like that in America were rich fashion models. I come from the poorest area in the nation, and I'm telling you that your 1 in 10 statistic is full of crap even there...

MasonM

on Jan 03, 2007

I love the way some people throw out these obviously laughable "facts" without anything at all to back them up except "because I said so". And they wonder why they are referred to as loons.

Larry Kuperman

on Jan 03, 2007

A good factual report on Hunger in America can be found at Link (America's Second Harvest.)

It is 306 pages, so be advised, but it will address just about every question that you have.

The study is based on interviews with almost 53,000 Americans. About 25 million Americans received emergency food assistance, about 4.5 million week. Most needed only short term assistance. Most experienced a dilemma where they had to choose between food and other necessities, most often medical care. Children made up about 1/3 of the group.

We have plenty of food in America, plenty available to feed the hungry. The problem is that the food is not always where the need is. I live in an affluent town. My Sunday School class used to volunteer at Food Gathers, an agency that helps address hunger in America. They had so many volunteers and so much food, they asked us not to come any more. But 35 miles away is Detroit. How do we get the food to the hungry?

Hunger in America, poverty in America isn't as bad as in say Somalia. But it still exists.

MasonM

on Jan 03, 2007

That's a long way from 30M going without eating.

Larry Kuperman

on Jan 03, 2007

"That's a long way from 30M going without eating."

Agreed. And there is a big difference between being at a point where you miss a meal or even several meals and the conditions of poverty in most places in the world. I tried to be pretty careful to point out those differences. As is often the case, the truth is somewhere in the middle.

And I understand Greywar's point, too. "Our poor can shop for groceries at 7-11, talk to their relatives on cell-phones that are so cheap as to be virtually free, buy lottery tickets by the dozen, or save that money for enough malt liquor to choke a horse." You go into any poor neighborhood in urban America and you will find someplace selling liquor and cigarettes and doing a thriving business.

But that doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of people that don't drink, don't smoke, work at least one job and are still one doctor's bill, one prescription, one missed paycheck away from a soup line. Look at the statistics ( it was your call, MasonM, for facts that got me to post here in the first place) and even if its only 10 million people, instead of 25 million, we still have a problem. And if say 3 million of them are kids, well that is a problem that merits fixing.

MasonM

on Jan 03, 2007

Look at the statistics ( it was your call, MasonM, for facts that got me to post here in the first place) and even if its only 10 million people, instead of 25 million, we still have a problem. And if say 3 million of them are kids, well that is a problem that merits fixing.

Extrapolated reports don't really present real facts though. 53,000 hand picked interviews do not millions make. Sorry, I just do not buy it.

There are food banks in virtually every population center in this country. Unemployment is very low. I believe that the numbers are artificially inflated. I have been in and lived in some of the poorest places in this country in some pretty lean times and everyone managed to eat every day. They may not have eaten well, I can recall eating beans three times a day at some times, but we ate.

Sure, not everyone eats steak every day, but I do not see a significant percentage (if any) of the population starving to death in this country.

Gideon MacLeish

on Jan 04, 2007

You claim that 10% of America doesn't eat everyday. US Population figures from here. This would of course require them to not only earn less than $1 a day but also to stay away from the free food centers (national charity, churches, and municipal welfare) in nearly every city and town across the nation.

or public schools, for that matter. Most public schools have breakfast AND lunch programs.

As LW has asked repeatedly, without ever receiving an answer, if the poor are starving in the streets in America, WHERE ARE THE BODIES? The lack of intakes in ER's of severely malnourished individuals (to the level that 30 million people starving would provide), or emaciated bodies in the city morgues would indicate that this "statistic" is a bold faced lie.

bakerstreet

on Jan 04, 2007

Being where I am from, I have seen people who have accepted "emergency" food funds, food stamps, etc. The rate of obesity, even in their kids, doesn't seem effected, and they seem to be able to afford cartons of cigarettes just fine...

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