Census: Half of Americans Are Poor or Low-Income

[mongers]

$45,000 for a family of four

Let's make it $380,000. Then the whole 99% can be poor.

I'm not really sure what you mean here.

That $45,000 isn't low income?  I mean, it wouldn't be for an individual.  But for a family of four it certainly qualifies (I know there are deflation fears, but since when has wages of $10 or $11/hr been more than a subsistence wage, especially with dependents?).

No, I think MiM's beef is with the 99% rhetoric, which I too find annoying.

[Ideologue]

Well, duh. That's why they are in the bottom half. 

Next: Half of teams lose a match. Film at 11.

Sigh.

[Admiral Yi]

No, I think MiM's beef is with the 99% rhetoric, which I too find annoying.

I think his beef is that 45K, while not exactly rolling in it, doesn't seem like grinding poverty either.

[Ideologue]

It's not, but it's basically a life on the razor's edge, one medical emergency or layoff away from utter destitution.  It's not a "good" amount of money to earn.  It's barely sufficient.

Particularly--maybe even solely, though I am not pinning myself to that--when you factor in children.  Korea and I made about $35-40k in 2007, and lived pretty decently that year, although far from extravagantly. But we did not have two children, which is what we're talking about.

[mongers]

No, I think MiM's beef is with the 99% rhetoric, which I too find annoying.

I think his beef is that 45K, while not exactly rolling in it, doesn't seem like grinding poverty either.

Yes but that total family income for four, so presuable might cover two wage earners + any state subsidies, rebates etc.

[MadImmortalMan]

It's both. Well, mostly I think 99% was chosen to make it seem like the majority is as big as it can be, and that's dumb. Because you know, math. It's just a rhetorical trick that diminishes and distracts from the real message.

And 45k is not that bad for a single income--like Ide said if a family of 4 makes that it's two incomes of 20 grand plus two kids presumably. Which is pretty poor, but not as poor as my family when I was a kid. Not by a long shot. If they live in Manhattan it's a different thing. 45k for a Somali family of four probably means dad is a warlord. You have to have perspective.

[mongers]

Well, duh. That's why they are in the bottom half. 

Next: Half of teams lose a match. Film at 11.

Definitely not in cricket or football, or potentially rugby and quite a few other team sports.   

[Ideologue]

It's both. Well, mostly I think 99% was chosen to make it seem like the majority is as big as it can be, and that's dumb. Because you know, math. It's just a rhetorical trick that diminishes and distracts from the real message.

I don't think that's true.  I think it was a good thing that the message embraced people who are not conventionally poor, or not poor at all, but who face fears and pressures not terribly qualitatively different than the poor.  I think the real message is that late-stage capitalism fucks almost everyone up, turning out a whole society of people who gain less than they should have, and who lose more than they ought, given the amount of wealth actually generated by this country, and who feel powerless as they try to avoid the footfalls of amoral giants.

I thought the counter-response to it was in some ways almost insane.  That 53% tumblr, you know?  The guys on there who were talking about working three jobs and seventy hours a week to make like $50,000 a year.  Like, dude, I can appreciate you work your fingers to the bone; can't you appreciate you shouldn't have to?

And 45k is not that bad for a single income--like Ide said if a family of 4 makes that it's two incomes of 20 grand plus two kids presumably. Which is pretty poor, but not as poor as my family when I was a kid. Not by a long shot. If they live in Manhattan it's a different thing. 45k for a Somali family of four probably means dad is a warlord. You have to have perspective.

And in medieval Britain, my ability to conjure death with my boomstick would make me a great hero.  Perspective is important, but the assertion that a third world country is worse is cold comfort for people dealing with genuine problems and facing genuine fears.

In any event, it's not the U.S. government's responsibility to improve conditions in Somalia.  What I can't stand is some people's belief that it is not the U.S. government's responsibility to improve conditions in America.

[Josquius]

There's your Republican base! 

I never got that about the US, how the poor and screwed over vote for the baby eating party which wants to screw them over more.

[Admiral Yi]

I don't think that's true.  I think it was a good thing that the message embraced people who are not conventionally poor, or not poor at all, but who face fears and pressures not terribly qualitatively different than the poor.

You really think people all the way up to the 99th percentile "face fears and pressures not terribly qualitatively different thant the poor?"  Seriously?

[Eddie Teach]

I never got that about the US, how the poor and screwed over vote for the baby eating party which wants to screw them over more.

Because the other party wants to take their guns away.

[Sheilbh]

No, I think MiM's beef is with the 99% rhetoric, which I too find annoying.

I think his beef is that 45K, while not exactly rolling in it, doesn't seem like grinding poverty either.

Presumably that'd be why it's the definition of 'low income' rather than 'poverty', far less 'grinding poverty' which was something, like Polio, I thought we'd largely managed to wipe out.

And 45k is not that bad for a single income--like Ide said if a family of 4 makes that it's two incomes of 20 grand plus two kids presumably. Which is pretty poor, but not as poor as my family when I was a kid. Not by a long shot. If they live in Manhattan it's a different thing. 45k for a Somali family of four probably means dad is a warlord. You have to have perspective.

This is all true.  But perspective's of limited use to family's on that sort of income or to conversations about it.  You have to have perspective, but with an excessive amount we all die eventually.

[Sheilbh]

I don't think that's true.  I think it was a good thing that the message embraced people who are not conventionally poor, or not poor at all, but who face fears and pressures not terribly qualitatively different than the poor.

You really think people all the way up to the 99th percentile "face fears and pressures not terribly qualitatively different thant the poor?"  Seriously?

That's not what he said at all.  This is why I don't like the 99% stuff.  It's a distraction, a constant waiting straw man.

Ide said people who are not conventionally poor or not poor at all facing the fears and pressures not that different from the poor.  I think that's undoubtedly the case.  Just look at Ide's list - one layoff, a medical emergency, I'd add trying to think of college for the kids, mortgage and debt repayments.  I think many people both the poor and people who were once middle class are facing very really fears and pressures.  Does that go up to 99th percentile?  Who can say, and who cares?

[Sheilbh]

Well, duh. That's why they are in the bottom half. 

Next: Half of teams lose a match. Film at 11.

Have you read the article? Have you read?

[Ideologue]

There's your Republican base! 

I never got that about the US, how the poor and screwed over vote for the baby eating party which wants to screw them over more.

It's a result of America's de facto two-party system: because the Republicans are not a party, but rather an alliance of various factions that could never win many elections on their own, anarchists, theocrats, and corporatists go to the GOP (along with small-government/fiscal austerity gurus, like you find on Languish, that I tend to lump under anarchists but I won't right now because right now I actually want to have a conversation, not a bon mot match).  Together, those factions can on occasion outnumber Democrats.

Now what's interesting (and full-on terrifying) is that recently these factions have coalesced into a form that is far more coherent in practical results than they are in ideology.  So you have Biblical literalists who will vote for rich people, libertarians who will vote pro-lifers, and wealthy people who ride the wave and see their interests advanced by libertarians and not really threatened by theocrats.

I've always said what the Democratic Party needed to do was get just as mean as the GOP, in order to establish dominance in the public debate that sways the lumpenproletariat who decides elections to and fro.  But it's hard, I think--psychologically--because the Democratic Party is essentially a party of niceness.  That is, when you take a progressive and take the hatred out of him, you wind up with someone who is mellower and probably happier, but a far less imposing figure nevertheless.  The GOP has hate to spare--and I don't say this to score a cheap point, I think Republicans here would agree that in many instances the GOP operates, ideologically, in a "negative" fashion, e.g., government should not do this, government should not do that, and this is born of a hatred either of government services in themselves, or a hatred of the taxes needed to fund them.

And that hatred makes them stronger than they would otherwise be.