Poverty in America

We often hear from sites such as the heritage Foundation about how the American poor have it so much better then the poor in the rest of the world. However, is that true?

http://ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22533&LangID=E


"7. In talking with people in the different states and territories I was frequently asked how the US compares with other states. While such comparisons are not always perfect, a cross-section of statistical comparisons provides a relatively clear picture of the contrast between the wealth, innovative capacity, and work ethic of the US, and the social and other outcomes that have been attained.

• By most indicators, the US is one of the world’s wealthiest countries. It spends more on national defense than China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, United Kingdom, India, France, and Japan combined.
• US health care expenditures per capita are double the OECD average and much higher than in all other countries. But there are many fewer doctors and hospital beds per person than the OECD average.
• US infant mortality rates in 2013 were the highest in the developed world.
• Americans can expect to live shorter and sicker lives, compared to people living in any other rich democracy, and the “health gap” between the U.S. and its peer countries continues to grow.
• U.S. inequality levels are far higher than those in most European countries
• Neglected tropical diseases, including Zika, are increasingly common in the USA. It has been estimated that 12 million Americans live with a neglected parasitic infection. A 2017 report documents the prevalence of hookworm in Lowndes County, Alabama.
• The US has the highest prevalence of obesity in the developed world.
• In terms of access to water and sanitation the US ranks 36th in the world.
• America has the highest incarceration rate in the world, ahead of Turkmenistan, El Salvador, Cuba, Thailand and the Russian Federation. Its rate is nearly 5 times the OECD average.
• The youth poverty rate in the United States is the highest across the OECD with one quarter of youth living in poverty compared to less than 14% across the OECD.
• The Stanford Center on Inequality and Poverty ranks the most well-off countries in terms of labor markets, poverty, safety net, wealth inequality, and economic mobility. The US comes in last of the top 10 most well-off countries, and 18th amongst the top 21.
• In the OECD the US ranks 35th out of 37 in terms of poverty and inequality.
• According to the World Income Inequality Database, the US has the highest Gini rate (measuring inequality) of all Western Countries
• The Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality characterizes the US as “a clear and constant outlier in the child poverty league.” US child poverty rates are the highest amongst the six richest countries – Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Sweden and Norway.
• About 55.7% of the U.S. voting-age population cast ballots in the 2016 presidential election. In the OECD, the U.S. placed 28th in voter turnout, compared with an OECD average of 75%. Registered voters represent a much smaller share of potential voters in the U.S. than just about any other OECD country. Only about 64% of the U.S. voting-age population (and 70% of voting-age citizens) was registered in 2016, compared with 91% in Canada (2015) and the UK (2016), 96% in Sweden (2014), and nearly 99% in Japan (2014)."

 

And then we have this:

https://www.thenation.com/article/the-gop-tax-bill-and-the-death-of-american-democracy/

A veteran diplomat with tours in Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and Albania, Alston was nonetheless shocked by what he saw here, in the richest country in the world. His devastating report described the conditions facing the one in eight Americans who live in poverty—rotting teeth, crushing debt, homelessness, hunger, drug addiction, untreated illness, and pollution. It also identified the political choices that keep poor Americans poor: neglect, discrimination, the criminalization of poverty, privatization, and the evisceration of the social safety net. “If you want to talk about the American dream, a child born into poverty has almost no chance of getting out of poverty in today’s United States, statistically,” he concluded.

The impact of the GOP tax plan on this already miserable state of affairs was not lost on the special rapporteur. “The proposed tax reform package stakes out America’s bid to become the most unequal society in the world,” he said. Or, as Thomas Piketty and his colleagues recently put it, the tax plan will “turbocharge inequality in America,” making it look “more and more like a rentier society.”

 

Poverty in the world’s richest country is a disgrace

Funny how the Christian Right can happily overlook passages of the bible that might mean they are a little less wealthy so all can have a decent standard of living

It’s not funny

It’s rank hypocrisy

The right are vicious bastards

 

And still liars. They wanted credit for the rise in the stock market, and as was predicted, not for the fall in the stock market:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/yup-sean-hannity-found-way-043952694.html

"On his Fox News radio show on Monday, Hannity said the market drop ― which at its worst saw the Dow industrials plunge by nearly 1,600 points and closing down 1,175 points for the day ― wasn’t the fault of President Donald Trump.

It’s his predecessor that’s to blame.

“Because the Obama economy was so weak all of these years, we had just artificially cheap money,” Hannity said, referring to a Fox News analysis he had seen on the cable network."

 

He believes in Trump like some in here do, so I would say yes.

 

LBJ institutionlized poverty with his "War on poverty." The solution to 90% of poverty issues is decent employment. LBJ created a "right" to welfare. So now you didn't have to work and you didn't have to feel guilty for taking the fruits of other's work cuz now the gov said it was your right.
Prog/lib/sec/hums like OT love to seize the moral high ground when the exact opposite is true. They create a problem, complain about the problem and then blame it on those who vote differently than them.
The war on poverty has been a monumental failure in every regard in curing poverty. But it has been a rousing success in institutionalizing a dependent voting class for Democrats. In the 50 years of WOP we have taken billions of dollars from people who work and given it to those who don't.
Congrats to you OT for your utter failure in solving poverty but rousing success in creating vote for Dems.

 

As usual your limited knowledge devoids you of the ability to tell the truth, or even know what the truth is. The only truthful comment you made was "The solution to 90% of poverty issues is decent employment", and the right wing will insure that this never happens. Reagan, and the right wing, started the war on unions while tripling the size of government, doubling the national debt, and transferring the wealth of the country to the 1% while placing the middle class on a road to stagnant wages, and a lower share of the GDP.

Other then that, you parrot the line fed to sheeple like you by the right wing that has never helped the middle class as this latest tax bill shows.