
A journey through a land of extreme poverty: welcome to America - SQL2219
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/15/america-extreme-poverty-un-special-rapporteur
======
gwright
From the article: > His fact-finding mission into the richest nation the world
has ever known has led him to investigate the tragedy at its core: the 41
million people who officially live in poverty.

Sounds bad, but that number "officially" leaves out almost all assistance
provided by the government to low-income beneficiaries such as food stamps,
housing etc. It is a measure of cash income poverty and not a measure of
income + government benefits.

It is a misleading metric because you can effectively feed, house, and clothe
all those with "poverty" level income and you won't change that poverty
statistic at all.

There is plenty of room for discussion on improved social welfare programs but
it might be prudent to actually acknowledge the existing benefits before
figuring out what to do next.

~~~
mempko
to get those welfare benefits, you have to go through bureaucratic hell. Many
don't do it because you have to give up some freedom to get those benefits.

~~~
gwright
Fair point, but also a different point. I also suspect it is a tiny number of
people out of the "41 million". Even with a low-friction delivery of
government services some people will opt-out on principle.

I have several acquaintances that live in poverty if you only count cash
income but they are living on their own terms and certainly wouldn't describe
themselves as "living in poverty".

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paulus_magnus2
Back in the day you'd chop down some trees, build yourself a shelter on none's
land and live of fishing + farming + hunting. It gets harder (impossible?) to
live without assets or ability to make money for someone else hired work.
Perhaps if they pooled their efforts?

~~~
lostlogin
Framing it as our problem rather than their problem would help more in my
opinion.

------
d_burfoot
Liberals and conservatives can take a look at the same data about homelessness
and poverty in the US and come to radically different policy conclusions. The
liberals say: look at this terrible poverty! We need to raise taxes and
provide more social services! The conservatives say: look at this terrible
poverty, that still exists in spite of the fact that we spend VAST TRILLIONS
of dollars on social services! Apparently the services have nearly zero
benefit, so we might as well cut them and lower taxes.

If you think the conservative position is obviously wrong, study Hong Kong and
Singapore. They have radically lower taxes than the US (14% and 17% of GDP vs
37% in the US), and yet exceed the US in _every dimension_ of social welfare:
better education, health, and infrastructure; lower crime, drug use, poverty
and homelessness.

~~~
mcphage
> If you think the conservative position is obviously wrong, study Hong Kong
> and Singapore.

Or study the US, where the states with the highest taxes have the lowest
poverty levels, and where the states with lowest taxes have the highest levels
of poverty.

~~~
indubitable
What is your reason for saying this? That was quite an interesting comment,
but after working to verify it - it seems to be simply false?

States by tax level ##: [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-us-states-have-the-
highest...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-us-states-have-the-highest-and-
lowest-taxes/)

States by poverty rate:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_poverty...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_poverty_rate)

\---

Wyoming - lowest tax rate, 3rd lowest poverty rate

Alaska - 2nd lowest tax rate, 8th lowest poverty rate

Nevada - 3rd lowest tax rate, 29th lowest poverty rate

South Dakota - 4th lowest tax rate, 23rd lowest poverty rate

Florida - 5th lowest tax rate, 37th lowest poverty rate

-

New York - highest tax rate, 32nd lowest poverty rate

California - 2nd highest tax rate, 35th lowest poverty rate

Nebraska - 3rd highest tax rate, 15th lowest poverty rate

Connecticut - 4th highest tax rate, 4th lowest poverty rate

Illinois - 5th highest tax rate, 24th lowest poverty rate

\---

I'm not going to map out all 50 states, but at least for the top and bottom
there seems to be no correlation at all. The low tax nations average to the
20th lowest poverty rate. The high tax states average out to the 22nd lowest
poverty rate. To be clear, that means the high tax states suffer more poverty
- at least when just considering the top 5 for each.

\---

## = The reason I used that article instead of Wiki's list of states by tax
level (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_tax_levels_in_the_United...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_tax_levels_in_the_United_States)
) is that the Wiki page just offers data on state tax income, not about the
actual rates.

~~~
AnodyneComplex
It's hard to do this just based on raw tax numbers. For instance, Alaska,
Wyoming and South Dakota all have large scale extraction operations as a
fraction of population. These supply a large fraction of income and are
obviously tied to a particular geographical.

My guess is that states with more social services aren't necessarily going to
have fewer people below the poverty line, but that being poor is not as bad
there (via access to health care, food/rent subsidies, etc). That's obviously
harder to pin a number on though.

------
doublerebel
The poverty in the cities is easy to see. But these people have services,
unlike the Colonias:

> The majority of these communities have no water infrastructures and lack
> wastewater or sewage services [3][5] Where sewer systems do exist there are
> no treatment plants in the area, and untreated wastewater is dumped into
> arroyos and creeks that flow into the Rio Grande or the Gulf of Mexico.

> More than 2000 colonias are identified within the U.S....

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonia_(United_States)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonia_\(United_States\))

Even the political articles about 'the wall' refuse to acknowledge this
because it is so horrifying. The problem we (Americans) have allowed is far
deeper than most anyone realizes.

~~~
rtx
I wonder is it solvable without authoritarianism.

------
umeshunni
>> California made a suitable starting point for the UN visit. It epitomizes
both the vast wealth generated in the tech boom for the 0.001%, and the
resulting surge in housing costs that has sent homelessness soaring.

Or you know, the decades or under-investing in housing and public services
that has sent homelessness soaring.

------
SQL2219
San Francisco, California, 6 December

[https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/15/america-
extr...](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/15/america-extreme-
poverty-un-special-rapporteur#img-5)

------
Feniks
Interesting but hypocritical coming from the UK.

Ultimately its a decision by society: safety net or not? I consider
homelessness a personal and national insult and would never stand for it. I
also pay 21% VAT on everything I buy.

~~~
ape4
There's no hypocrisy. The Guardian newspaper doesn't run the UK.

~~~
richardknop
It’s a UK newspaper though wouldn’t you agree?

~~~
jdietrich
A UK newspaper that has been relentlessly critical of the Conservative
government from the minute they took office. A UK newspaper that has run
stories about the effects of austerity on an almost daily basis since 2008. A
UK newspaper that's currently running a charity telethon to raise funds for
homelessness charities.

There's no hypocrisy here.

~~~
richardknop
A UK newspaper which has been supportive of Blairite neo-liberal
establishment, including but not limited to foreign adventurism such as
invasion of Iraq based on rock solid evidence that there were weapons of mass
destruction and we were in danger of mushroom clouds over Europe and US?

------
junkscience2017
the US leads in inequality

go see Aboriginal communities in Canada and Australia, the story is similar
including the substance abuse.

and nations which have rejected wealth polarization like Venezuela are no
better off. indeed they simply have eliminated prosperity instead of poverty

Californians like to sneer from some moral high ground as if this is strictly
a facet of a right wing society they've tried to "correct", despite the West
Coast turning into a Hunger Games world

poverty will be part of the human condition forever. we are not bees, we are
apes, it simply isn't in our code to act as a colony

------
indubitable
I find something quite difficult to answer. Imagine you have all the political
power, and all the money in the world. You are tasked with creating as close
to a utopia as you can. Now let's consider a group. Think of those on the top
of our society who have a seemingly insatiable drive towards indulgence of
drug, drink, and other such harmful vices. In spite of access to the the
world's best rehabilitation centers, counseling, and often wide social
networks - we not infrequently see these people indulge themselves literally
to death. On the bottom of society we also have the same sorts. The only
difference is that in this case they tend to be unable to sustain their habit
and end up on the streets instead of in a coffin.

How do deal with this problem? I suppose the 'safe' answer is to try to
pretend that these people might not exist if we had an otherwise 'better'
world, but I think that's improbable. This affliction is something that
affects people of all classes in all societies, and has since the advent of
civilization. And the reason I focused on the top of society first is that I
think they're clear evidence that in some cases you simply cannot counsel or
rehab the problem away. And it is those specific cases that a humane solution
seems almost impossible to find.

~~~
lostlogin
If some are too far gone to save, how do you explain the fact that US poverty
rates differ to other countries and between states? And if some can’t be
saved, does that mean you don’t try to help anyone? The toxic open sewers and
resurgent third world (what ever that term means) diseases seem like something
even those at the top of society wouldn’t want in their country. Reduction in
poverty has been achieved elsewhere and blaming the victim doesn’t really
stand up to scrutiny.

~~~
indubitable
That is quite the bit of straw manning! I'm simply asking how anybody would
propose to solve the problem even given the unreasonably simple scenario of
absolute power and no economic considerations. Even in this 'toy scenario',
nothing really seems particularly viable.

One major problem you'll have with comparing other nations (or even states) is
genetic issues. The exact heritability of addiction is not clear, but the fact
that it has a heritability that ranges from significant to extremely
significant [1] is clear. As always, not all people are the same.

[1] -
[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1360-0443.2008....](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1360-0443.2008.02213.x/abstract)

~~~
lostlogin
Are you arguing the American type of poverty is unique and because of
addiction it’s too hard to try?

That linked article suggests that there may be a genetic component to
addiction. So? There is a well established link between income and addiction
too, between inequality and addiction as well as between education level and
poverty, and between addiction and education. Things are connected. Is the
American situation really so unique and special that nothing can be done?

There are some pretty concrete examples in the article of things that would
make a massive, positive change that would last generations (eg, build a
sewer). It’s not all hard.

~~~
indubitable
I'm not really arguing anything. As I said, I see no answer so I certainly
don't have any side. I'm discussing homelessness more than poverty, though.
The issues which leave one homeless and those which leave one in poverty, but
still living under your own roof, are quite different. The former has a strong
link to addiction and other such issues, not so much in the former.

