Official Poverty Versus Actual Poverty

[AutumnW]

"Many economists and sociologists argue that even the higher US Supplemental Poverty Measure doesn’t show the full extent of financial hardship.

Organizations like the United Way track a metric called ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed).

These are working households that earn above the official poverty line but still cannot afford a basic, survival-level household budget.

Nationally, when combining those in official poverty with ALICE households, an estimated 29% to 40% of all American households live in a state of chronic financial insecurity, unable to absorb a minor emergency expense."

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=QwK_nH4y9yA

[Harmony]

It seems the cost of living is rising a lot faster than incomes and pensions in many places around the world. I know this is happening in Australia as well. In all facets of daily life it can put stress on the average person where you really have to try and stay centered and remember what is really important in life. The statistics in Australia are usually created to make things look a lot better than they actually are for the "real average" person. I know people that travel around the country and they see many living out of their cars, especially single mothers with children. There are systems in place where food is available when people are in trouble, but losing your home and finding an affordable place to rent can be difficult.

[Mike Gorman]

Yes Harmony, I too have seen a lot of proof that many folks are living out of their vehicles and camping where they can find a suitable location - the rents have quite literally sky rocketed: it cannot be right that our society turns such a cold shoulder to ordinary people simply trying to live a decent life, the official world seeks to conceal this and carries on importing masses of African/Indian people in particular, this cannot be seen as a positive/practical way to conduct the nation's population, it really is bothering a lot of Australians which accounts for this move towards the very practical One Nation. They depict this as being a 'far right' tendency towards Racism and white supremacy: Surprise!
What we used to regard as being prosaic Common Sense has now been shifted into the media spun right wing factions - it is Bonkers, but of course driven by a combination of greed/economic gamesmanship/EU driven ideology and the attempt to import left leaning voters to overcome the 'Populist' push back.
We know what is happening, we observe it each day - I pray that the silent majority finally mobilizes and we can turn all of this around - most of us simply want our country/life back to the way it was only 30 years ago - the majority of populist following people are simply ordinary folk.
I am not proposing any magic cures here, I suppose many of us are comforted by simply exchanging stories and knowing we are not alone with our observations?

[sdv]

The majority of especially Westerners have forgotten absolute poverty, and have enthusiastically supported the very systems that create periods of absolute poverty, and allowed themselves to be brainwashed. I find this cycle especially disturbing as, at first, indications are that surplus people will be genocide or herded into areas where their basic needs will be met and they will be monitored constantly and punished for transgressions. Gaza can be seen as an experiment, but what emerged from that experiment is that humans resist.

Westerners especially are being brainwashed to see the problem as one about race and culture, so I do not think it is a mistake that immigrants from the Third World are being let in and then pointed at as the problem. (Ironically, mostly in countries that stole the land from the indigenous people and then marginalized them.) These immigrants are still caught up in the dream of working hard to better yourself, so they enthusiastically embrace these opportunities, but they will be discarded as surplus when the time comes, and what better than for the discarded suffering whites (they were bought up to believe they are superior and entitled and have been betrayed by their own people) to turn in these immigrants (easy to identify if they are of a different race).

Do not despair. History shows that humans are resilient and will fight impossible odds to survive. Gaza is an example of that. I am increasingly coming across Americans who are embracing Ubuntu and saying 'f! the government and president and billionaires etc.' and are creating networks based on basic human rights (secure housing, healthy food, healthcare, education, transportation). A country like China supports those human rights for the people; in the West, a revolution will be required, but I see the building blocks everywhere, not only in the networks but also in the questioning and the change of mindsets. All revolutions are complex (unfortunately with compromises) and the Hollywood version is usually simplified.

For most of us though, the problem is how to survive this great war, great shift ... as warriors and change agents and not victims.

[shaberon]

Posted by Harmony (here)
It seems the cost of living is rising a lot faster than incomes and pensions in many places around the world. I know this is happening in Australia as well. In all facets of daily life it can put stress on the average person where you really have to try and stay centered and remember what is really important in life. The statistics in Australia are usually created to make things look a lot better than they actually are for the "real average" person.

That pretty much defines Fascism.

One way of explaining this is that western "economics" counts Gross Domestic Product (GDP) based on things that are not products.

Like the stock market. If you make a million on a stock trade, it's counted, even though that produces nothing.

Gaza and the rest of the world is being treated like a real estate squeeze.

The whole point is just to drive up the price. Value is given to the landlord. But by depreciation and other tactics, they will pay little or no tax, so they aren't contributing anything to a community chest that could be used, potentially, to improve something.

In most cases, poverty is inflicted by capitalism.

Of course, this can be easily changed, on the level of a revolution. Nothing much else will do it.


Being on the receiving end of this, that is, actual poverty, I'm not talking from any statistical point of view about awareness. It's straight experience. It's why I haven't really done anything for years.

Many years. Judging from the view that I came on Avalon ten years ago, that was in my second period of unemployment, when I had my own place but I could see the writing on the wall. So I had to face a few choices for a way to live as cheaply as possible.

I was successful, in the sense that I got the price down to free in a place that I personally picked.

Anyone ever do that? I never had. So I got in this arrangement intended to be temporary -- three years or so -- with the intent of saving up and then we would go do something fun with our lives.

It never happened. I can't live in that cheap place any more, I have to pay. Right now where I am sitting, there is no house payment, the place was made from the trees that were standing right here. It's a completely homemade place. Shortly after I got here, the property tax was raised. Anyone ever seen this kind of jump?


42%


And so now, the free, homemade place costs almost as much as a house I bought off the market!

What do I get in return for the money? I can understand we might use about $40 worth of trash dump services. That's it. Nothing else. But if you are a data center there won't be property tax. What other exemptions are we slinging around? I'm carrying the burden of what? Everyone behind this should be fired. Instead, they'll be well-paid.

Then of course if I want to drive to work in order to not be thrown off the property by the sheriff, he will say it is mandatory I buy private insurance. I didn't hurt anyone. Why am I being punished?

Why does it get to keep raising its rates? Because this is the only country in the developed world with a medical industry backed by for-profit insurance?

I asked a guy out of high school what he thought a single room around here would cost, and I told him I've had two whole houses for that much. This is also in the past few years, thanks to AI and big corporations buying everything, probably with little to no tax involved.

I fortunately have not had to live in a car or worse, although the current conditions meet the definition of sub-standard.

[petra]

This is just so sad. Poverty should not even be
Here we are sending rockets into space while we still have poverty
There’s a reason I’m obsessed with star trek. It’s just so… idyllic

I’m starting to try and be more generous. I grew up poor so hoarding money was a way of life for me a long time. It’s hard to break the habit. I just get so worried about being poor again. I’m one of the lucky ones.. I don’t want for anything

Just yesterday I gave a man money and cigarettes and a lighter. He looked so messed up. He said “nobody beat me up, this is just sunburn”

[sdv]

My measurement of poverty ...

Secure housing, healthy food and water, medical care, transport, education (not simply formal schooling but access to books and conversations that develop and enrich the mind) are my basic standards. Absolute poverty is when those basics become unaffordable for you. That is the case for far too many in the world. People in the West, in my opinion, are throwing away the security of these basic rights for wars and enriching the billionaire and political class.

Perhaps I am too influenced by Maslow's pyramid?

[shaberon]

Posted by sdv (here)
My measurement of poverty ...

Secure housing, healthy food and water, medical care, transport, education (not simply formal schooling but access to books and conversations that develop and enrich the mind) are my basic standards. Absolute poverty is when those basics become unaffordable for you. That is the case for far too many in the world. People in the West, in my opinion, are throwing away the security of these basic rights for wars and enriching the billionaire and political class.

Perhaps I am too influenced by Maslow's pyramid?

I think it is the right influence. No one is much different in those terms. However, particularly in the west, we have camouflaged it with a misconception:


technological development


As a relatively poor American, I have never been in a lack of basics. Mainly because a lot of development has been done, so, you can be almost broke, but still use the internet. I personally value it for ongoing education. But I take everything as educational, like exercise and other activities, and that is where the flowers wilt in this society.

They used to point fingers at the third world, where nothing much has been developed, and so they could be called "primitive", but what turns out to be ironically true is that a primitive language has never been discovered.

Those people aren't backwards; they don't, so to speak, deserve absolute poverty because the Industrial Revolution more or less started in England.

Rather than sharing to help them get the basics and build up, we have a finely-tuned system to keep you in the lower ranks and out of influential decisions, fluffed up by a bunch of bonkers in this official-versus-actual metaphor.

For example, we track "unemployment" at usually around 4%, but if we go to the more realistic "labor participation rate", it is around 42%.

In both my times, I flew off the end of "unemployment". First took about six months when I found that, despite having a degree and decades of a variety of work experience, I was no better off than someone right out of high school.

I did something corresponding to that, then moved my way to a better job where I would still be, except I did not know it was in bankruptcy from trying to change from a well-loved local shining star, into a big corporation. We couldn't even sell it to the Chinese.

That's when I lacked secure housing, just as Thomas Jefferson warned that if we do not protect ourselves, everything will go into mortgage. Isn't that exactly what happened? Is it not an utterly corrupt vehicle? The method of wiping out family farms and preventing anyone from "home ownership".

I don't anticipate any "path of progress" like I once found, but can probably survive as a meaningless statistic.

[shaberon]

So, the mark of absolute poverty still concerns the whole world.

I can't compare my experience to those who are stuck in a shack in the mud. All of this comes together in the World Cities Report 2026:

The current global housing crisis is the outcome of decades of insufficient investment, rapid urbanization, economic instability, and displacement caused by conflict and disasters. Recent global estimates indicate that up to 3.4 billion people lack access to secure, safe, and adequate housing, including more than 1 billion people living in informal settlements and slums under conditions characterized by insecure tenure, overcrowding, exposure to environmental hazards, and limited access to basic services. Despite the universal recognition of housing as a human right, progress remains inadequate.

Global housing deficits increased from 251 million units in 2010 to 288 million in 2023, while forced displacement continues to rise due to conflict, violence, human rights violations, and climate-related disasters. Research conducted by UN-Habitat estimates that approximately 64 million people were evicted globally between 2003 and 2023, with severe consequences for livelihoods, security, and social well-being.

As per Habitat for Humanity:

Taken together, these findings show that the housing crisis is not one crisis but a set of interconnected challenges: unaffordability, displacement, informality, climate risk and declining liveability. Housing inadequacy is now at record levels. Opening the door to safe, adequate housing for people around the world requires a holistic understanding of housing as more than a physical structure. It is essential to treat housing as a long-term social and economic process, rather than a one-time product or financial asset. We must prioritize adequate housing as a sustained development goal and advance integrated, decentralized, and context-specific solutions that address needs across the Global Housing Continuum.

And, they include a few tidbits that take a swipe at the "official/unofficial" or otherwise enforced poverty that we have here:

44% of renters pay unaffordable rents.
The global house price-to-income ratio rose to 11.2 in 2023.

Renewed government action is needed to improve housing systems
The report calls for a decisive “return of the state” to housing policy. Housing must be treated as both social infrastructure and a public policy priority, not merely a market commodity.

In other words, what I would have used to have considered mobility has been erased by big companies doing the opposite of the recommendation.

Here, they will of course just say that's your problem.

Governments that support that are inhumane, at which ours has gone so far off the deep end, it's not retrievable.

That's unacceptable.

This place needs a huge domestic fix rather than positioning itself as "leadership" towards anything.

[AutumnW]

Posted by Mike Gorman (here)
Yes Harmony, I too have seen a lot of proof that many folks are living out of their vehicles and camping where they can find a suitable location - the rents have quite literally sky rocketed: it cannot be right that our society turns such a cold shoulder to ordinary people simply trying to live a decent life, the official world seeks to conceal this and carries on importing masses of African/Indian people in particular, this cannot be seen as a positive/practical way to conduct the nation's population, it really is bothering a lot of Australians which accounts for this move towards the very practical One Nation. They depict this as being a 'far right' tendency towards Racism and white supremacy: Surprise!
What we used to regard as being prosaic Common Sense has now been shifted into the media spun right wing factions - it is Bonkers, but of course driven by a combination of greed/economic gamesmanship/EU driven ideology and the attempt to import left leaning voters to overcome the 'Populist' push back.
We know what is happening, we observe it each day - I pray that the silent majority finally mobilizes and we can turn all of this around - most of us simply want our country/life back to the way it was only 30 years ago - the majority of populist following people are simply ordinary folk.
I am not proposing any magic cures here, I suppose many of us are comforted by simply exchanging stories and knowing we are not alone with our observations?

I don't know about Australia, Mike and Harmony, but in Canada the feds encouraged immigration in part because native born Canadians were having fewer children. We needed contributions to social security from foreign employees and businesses.


Immigrants are willing to live cheek by jowl for years to establish themselves, the extended family looks after daycare and they have a positive genius for frugality. They're remarkable. They have displaced some native Canadians but are also keeping our health care system up and running.

BC's problem, price wise was billionaires and crooks from China, bidding up the price of houses in the Vancouver area. The spillover ended up in Victoria and the Gulf Islands.

That and permitting and materials are expensive everywhere for new builds. It's been a disaster and very short sighted. There's also plenty of criminal activity that has underpinned all of it.

Trudeau was very late to the game in taking any action to deal with immigration problems. I guess he can be forgiven somewhat as he is a Dumb ass, and he may not be able to help it.

Carney has cracked down further on immigration and is working tirelessly on mass home building projects. I hope he's a roaring success!