
Alabama Has the Worst Poverty in the Developed World, U.N. Official Says - tomrod
http://www.newsweek.com/alabama-un-poverty-environmental-racism-743601
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patrickg_zill
I am sure that this news article has absolutely nothing to do with the special
election on Dec 12th between Moore and Jones for Senate.

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katastic
And if it is a "3rd world" state, why aren't people jumping to donate and help
and aid them?

"Cuz 'rednecks." The only group you're allowed to prosecute on TV, media, and
public discourse.

But if liberals were running in and giving free aid, and helping lives, those
people would start to like liberals.

I mean, when we help people in Ghana, do we check to make sure they don't have
any conflicting political values? When we aid Syria, have we checked to make
sure they're there aren't any nationalists and racists?

I'd love to hear an actual rebuttal, but I guess I'll have to settle for
downvotes from people who can't. I guess bigotry is okay when it's people you
hate.

~~~
throwaway2016a
> But if liberals were running in and giving free aid, and helping lives,
> those people would start to like liberals.

Not to put to fine a point on it but the #1 criticism I hear from my GOP
friends is that Liberals want too much of our tax money to go to welfare
programs. Who do you think benefits from those welfare programs?

As a study of human nature it is fascinating. These people don't benefit from
tax breaks, they don't even have enough money to be taxed. They do benefit
from the social welfare programs. Yet they consistently vote for the party
that gives out the tax breaks. It makes no sense.

One possible explanation is the fear that the liberals will give away the jobs
to immigrants and oversees workers. I don't have a good answer for those
people, I wish I did.

> "Cuz 'rednecks." The only group you're allowed to prosecute on TV, media,
> and public discourse.

Except for muslims, immigrants, citizens of countries we don't like, LGBT
people... and liberals. Turn on Fox, it is 3 hours of liberal bashing. Clearly
they are "allowed" to do that, no one is stopping them.

Seriously, I'm not even a liberal. I'm a Libertarian. But anyone can see the
holes in your arguments.

~~~
bmh_ca
The rich, who benefit from tax breaks, spend copiously on issues that
influence the poorest’ votes. Abortion, religion, military, immigration,
homophobia. Emotional issues that influence deeply those who lack critical
thinking skills. And so the poor vote against their own interest,
consistently. It’s classic neuropsychology.

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futhey
Unfortunate headline. Would expect to see it changed.

Growing up I spent a few years in Alabama. Not at all surprised by any of
this, but it's not "the worst in the United States", or the developed world,
by any stretch.

Not that it's a competition, but census data would put a couple of states (I
believe consistently Louisiana, West Virginia, & Arkansas) below Alabama in
median household income.

~~~
c2h5oh
It's not about how poor or rich the state is, but what percentage of people
live in poverty. The poverty definition used is living for less than 50% of
median income in the area (in this case state) so it's more of an income
inequality measure.

~~~
prostoalex
That seems like a gameable metric. Encourage the 5/10/50/100 highest-income
individuals to establish their primary residence someplace else (in this case
other state) and things will look very positive comparative-equality-wise.

~~~
Spooky23
As the GOP slashes federal spending, you’ll see that.

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mythrwy
Article has a picture of a falling down house. But guess what, it's a house!

Go look under an overpass in San Francisco to see even more dire poverty and
even less chance of self obtaining minimum standards of living (i.e food and
basic shelter) as cost of shelter is so far removed from potential income.

But probably stating California has worst poverty in developed world doesn't
support the underlying motive of the article.

Incidentally, Alabama does have a lot of poverty and isn't a place most of
would be comfortable living due to social climate. Which is a real shame
because I find it to be quite a beautiful state, at least the areas I've seen.

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CalChris
I would have thought Mississippi but it doesn’t surprise me that it’s in the
South. Huntsville has some defense work and I know there’s a Mercedes plant
(in Vance, I had to look that up). But I can’t think of anything else in the
state.

[https://www.careerinfonet.org/oview6.asp?soccode=&id=&nodeid...](https://www.careerinfonet.org/oview6.asp?soccode=&id=&nodeid=12&stfips=01&from=State)

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dokument
Redstone Arsenal/NASA/Aerospace in Huntsville

Mercedes in Vance.

Hyundai in Montgomery

Honda in Talladega

Toyota in Madison

Airbus Mobile

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thrden
well thats clearly untrue, because when adjusted for cost of living,
California has a higher poverty rate[1]

[1][http://www.politifact.com/california/statements/2017/jan/20/...](http://www.politifact.com/california/statements/2017/jan/20/chad-
mayes/true-california-has-nations-highest-poverty-rate-w/)

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gumby
Some data from the study mentioned in the Newsweek fluff piece:
[https://qz.com/879092/the-us-doesnt-look-like-a-developed-
co...](https://qz.com/879092/the-us-doesnt-look-like-a-developed-country/)

~~~
marcoperaza
> _The US has the second-highest rate of poverty among rich countries (poverty
> here measured by the percentage of people earning less than half the
> national median income_

That is a preposterous way to compare poverty between countries. By this
definition, an American can make more money than a Frenchmen, but the former
will be counted as poor and the latter not. And I reckon that we'd fair much
better than the EU as a single entity under this standard.

Measuring food security by obesity rates is also dumb. Americans are fat
because food is incredibly abundant, we have a cultural preference for junk
food, and we are physically lazy. That says absolutely nothing about the
availability of healthy food.

We are unhealthy individuals, but our health care system is the absolute best
at treating diseases. We pay a lot for it because we’re the only developed
country where the health care industry isn’t a _monopsony_ (single or
oligarchic purchaser).

Our child mortality and life expectancy are conflated with a large immigrant
population and the existence of an underclass. If you equalize the results for
diversity, America does just as well as the other developed countries.

And it is absurd to compare the entire US to tiny countries like Denmark or
even medium sized ones like France. If you broke the US into regions, you’d
probably get different results. I bet New England and the Pacific Northwest
would be at the top of many of those categories.

Basically, this data is framed with a conclusion in mind and doesn’t account
for how big, diverse, and unique the United States.

~~~
noobermin
>That is a preposterous way to compare poverty between countries.

My guess is it's a quick way to compare while factoring differences in the
cost of living. The idea is that the absolute differences between the
countries might not mean much given differences in cost of living, so you
compare relative difference inside a country. I can't defend it vigorously,
but that's my guess.

>Our child mortality and life expectancy are conflated with a large immigrant
population and the existence of an underclass. If you equalize the results for
diversity, America does just as well as the other developed countries.

"Hmm, if we cut out of our statistics the points that draw it down, it will
bring our average up." That seems like cooking the books. Shouldn't we include
those who bear the brunt of externalities in society? Is that exactly what
they are looking for here?

~~~
Turing_Machine
> My guess is it's a quick way to compare while factoring differences in the
> cost of living.

How does using _national_ median income factor in the difference in the cost
of living between states?

~~~
noobermin
Point taken. While I also feel like delineating by regions in the US might be
smart to some extent, the states are somewhat coupled to each other due to
federal programs and such. But yeah, you're probably right about it not
helping since states have widely varying cost of living.

Regardless, even if you do delineate by geography, excluding populations
within a population is still "lipping your bad statistics to push up your
mean.

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rndholesqpeg
Apparently they hadn't made it as far west as Mississippi yet

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scythe
Headline is slightly misleading:

>A United Nations official investigating poverty in the United States was
shocked at the level of environmental degradation in some areas of rural
Alabama, saying he had never seen anything like it in the developed world.

i.e., the worst poverty _the official had ever seen_ in the developed world,
not the worst according to some comprehensive study.

~~~
wnevets
>i.e., the worst poverty the official had ever seen in the developed world,
not the worst according to some comprehensive study.

Well I'm sure the fine folks of Alabama will sleep better at night knowing
this.

~~~
scythe
Well, the choice would have been for the article to have a factual title or
get flagged off the front page. HN seems to have chosen the second option.

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tr4cefl0w
I remember seeing somewhere that they mostly rely on Mountain Dew for
hydration and even feed it to the baby, so bad that they have early tooth
decay issues. Apparently the amount of people living in trailer parks is huge
and constantly growing.

Troubling when you think that this is happening in the US. I saw that kind of
situation in central america.

~~~
lelandbatey
From what I remember and what I can find, that was something that was
particularly found in Appalachia, not Alabama (see this article[0]). A quick
check on Google maps shows that Alabama is about as far from Appalachia (in
West Virginia) as London, UK, is from Hamburg, Germany. So I think it's a
stretch to say they're in the same geographic area.

[0] -
[https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/09/12/221845853/mo...](https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/09/12/221845853/mountain-
dew-mouth-is-destroying-appalachias-teeth)

~~~
CalChris
About half of Alabama is Appalachian.

[https://www.arc.gov/images/appregion/AppalachianRegionCounti...](https://www.arc.gov/images/appregion/AppalachianRegionCountiesMap.pdf)

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RickJWag
<sigh> More politics on Hacker News. Tiring.

~~~
Tempest1981
Although the "signal to noise" of HN political discussions is so good compared
to everywhere else.

Question: is there another community that has high-quality discussions on
political issues? Would love to find one.

