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[skeagsidhe]

In the US, as of 2006, the poverty level for a single person was set at $9800 per year. I find that disturbing.

The World Health Organization, for the same year, set its poverty level at <$1 per day, or $365 per year.

That puts things in a very different perspective.

You lot are all getting Heiffer critters for the holidays again this year.

Comments

[pers1stence]

Those are both disturbingly small amounts of money.

Heifer Intntl is awesome.

[skeagsidhe]

They really are. Living here, given cultural standards, for $9800 a year seems nearly impossible. And then you realize that that's almost 27 times the poverty level used for the rest of the world. Really makes you think...

[beccatiger]

$9800 is about half the ammount we would receive in BAH if we weren't living in housing, and I think BAH wouldn't get us much more than a single bedroom apartment in this area, though it's also enough for a house payment. There are places in the country that it is possible to live on that much, but CT is not really one of them. The idea of trying to live on $1 a day... I don't think you could do it here even with no housing expenses and eating nothing but Ramen and rice. Gah, that's just depressing.

[skeagsidhe]

And even in those places where you could get a place to stay for under $9800, that's still just housing. That doesn't include food, medicine, transportation, clothing, utilities and all of the other things we expect to have.

Scary, isn't it?

[gianetta]

We lived on around $13k when we first moved to VA (in 1997, so the $13k was worth more than what it's worth today) before Adam found a job. That really sucked. I can't imagine living on less than that amount in 2007. For a really eye-opening view of the working poor in America, 'Nickel and Dimed' is a great book - a writer went undercover and lived as a minimum wage worker at Walmart, a cleaning agency, and one other job. We take for granted things like buying gas (I have *never* put in less than a full tank) or being able to put together a security deposit for an apartment, which is no easy feat at minimum wage

[skeagsidhe]

I read that a couple of years ago. Good book. I passed it on to some of the kids at Brown who REALLY didn't get it when it came to poverty level. But when you look at the global levels vs. US? Even more horrifying..

Poverty on $9800 vs $365

[mike5816]

The amount of cash needed to live above poverty is relative to the economy one is living in. In a 100% cash-based economy like ours, it takes a lot of cash to survive. In a more subistance economy, where cash isn't all that necessary for many things, it takes less cash to survive. Think about how many people in the "third world" are growing food in their gardens, gathering food in the forest/jungle, hunting for food, or bartering for food. How many people in the US do that? How many can do that? If you live in a city (most Americans) you can't really grow a garden, you can't hunt, you can't just go pick fruit off some tree without getting shot (at), and you can't barter... nor do you have time to do so, what with all the work you have to do to earn cash to support the cash-based economy.

This is why people in the Sahara Desert with no cash in their pocket but 1,000 camels are considered incredibly rich in their own culture, and why a person in Britain with £1,000 in their pocket each day and no camels would be just as rich.

Re: Poverty on $9800 vs $365

[skeagsidhe]

Granted, but there's still some need for cash in most any economy for fuel, medicine, foods you can't grow, installing plumbing, etc. And those living on less than $365 a year are pretty desparately poor.

Re: Poverty on $9800 vs $365

[mike5816]

Yes, but my point is that cash isn't the only measure by which people get by. A person can get by on $1000 in some places pretty well, but not at all in others.

They say "money can't buy happiness," which may or may not be true, but it does give one the opportunity to remove obstacles to happiness. That said, there are many people perfectly happy with their lives the way they are no matter how rich or poor they are. Why are we bothering to measure income when we really should be measuring happiness? It's been done, you know.