

Bottom 5% of Americans are still wealthier than 68% of world population - lionhearted
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/the-haves-and-the-have-nots/?src=me&ref=business

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derrida
The title for this is misleading. Poverty is defined as the inability to
access basic human needs such as food, water, healthcare, education, clothing
and shelter. While the relative purchasing power of American's is strong if
they go to another country, the relative purchasing power of American's
locally is severly diminished. As a result about 15% of Americans live below
the UN defined poverty line. So what is "wealth" if you are in that 5% that
surely are below the UN poverty line?

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yummyfajitas
_As a result about 15% of Americans live below the UN defined poverty line._

This is blatantly false. The UN defines poverty as follows:

 _1) Severe Food Deprivation– Body Mass Index of 16 or below (severe
underweight).

2) Severe Water Deprivation - access only to surface water (e.g. rivers,
ponds) for drinking or living in households where the nearest source of water
was more than 15 minutes away – 30min round trip (e.g. indicators of severe
deprivation of water quality or quantity).

3) Severe Deprivation of Sanitation Facilities – no access to a toilet of any
kind in the vicinity of their dwelling, e.g. no private or communal toilets or
latrines.

4) Severe Health Deprivation – Women who did not receive treatment for a
recent serious illness or who did not receive any antenatal care or who did
not receive any assistance with birth or who did not receive a tetanus
inoculation during her pregnancy. Men who did not receive treatment for a
recent serious illness.

5) Severe Shelter Deprivation – living in dwellings with 4 or more people per
room (severe overcrowding) or in a house with no flooring (e.g. a mud floor).

6) Severe Education Deprivation – youth who never attended school and who are
also illiterate

7) Severe Information Deprivation – no access to newspapers, radio or
television or computers or phones at home (e.g. no information sources).

Absolute Poverty threshold is equal to 2 or more severe deprivations of basic
human need_

[http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unyin/documents/ydiDavidGordon_...](http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unyin/documents/ydiDavidGordon_poverty.pdf)

There is virtually no one in America suffering from any of these problems.
Most of the poor in America are fat, have clean drinking water, flush toilets,
watch plenty of TV, and do not have mud floors.

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derrida
That is the UN definition for "Absolute Poverty" which is different to the UN
definition for Overall Poverty. But you are right in that I cited the US
figures in place of the UN figures. But my original point remains.

Consider this "In 2009, in the United States of America, the poverty threshold
for a single person under 65 was US$11,161; the threshold for a family group
of four, including two children, was US$21,756". "Poverty in the United States
is cyclical in nature with roughly 13 to 17% of Americans living below the
federal poverty line at any given point in time, and roughly 40% falling below
the poverty line at some point within a 10-year time span."

Thank you wikipedia
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States>

~~~
yummyfajitas
Just curious, what is the UN definition of "Overall Poverty"?

The US poverty threshold is irrelevant when comparing to India (and
determining whether the graph/title is misleading) since we have no idea what
fraction of Indian households fall below it.

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pitiburi
"Yes, that’s right: America’s poorest are, as a group, about as rich as
India’s richest."

or, how to completely misunderstand a graph and show you have no idea what you
are talking about. What a waste of time.

~~~
credo
I'm amazed that an NYT writer could have made such a big mistake and that no
one on their staff detected it.

The graph shows the poorest 20% of Indian society. Within that group, the
richest people (i.e. people at the 20th percentile) have incomes comparable to
America's poorest.

Unfortunately, the writer seems to have ignored the fact that the richest 80%
of Indians aren't covered in the graph.

~~~
Locke1689
No, you screwed that up. That graph doesn't show the percentile, it shows the
_ventile_. A ventile is 5 percentile, so the 20th ventile is the the 95-100
percentile.

~~~
credo
yes, sorry, my mistake. The y-axis is in percentile,but the x-axis is in
ventile.

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ZeroGravitas
So people should stop complaining about high taxation, in fact we should raise
them and give them to the poor, because you'd still be obscenely rich in a
global sense right? Or were we going somewhere else with this?

