An horrific statistics from the United States:
The current poverty line is drawn at annual incomes equal to or less than $12,490 for an individual and $25,750 for a family of four, regardless of where someone lives. By this standard, 38.1 million people are living in poverty with an additional 93 million more “living close to poverty,” according to the most recent Census Bureau data from 2018.
That’s, ish-ish, half the entire population in or near to poverty!
As it happens the US poverty line is around 25% of median income. The definition of “near to poverty” being used here is up to 200% of the poverty line. Which will, as the mathematically inclined will note, mean – ish-ish again – all those on up to 100% of median income, or about half the population.
Remarkable how that works really, some half of the population is on less than median income….
Typo somewhere. 200% of 25% is 50% of (“median income”) not nearly (unless you are using an Alastair Campbell version of “nearly”).
What, in the US of A, does income have to do with “living in poverty”. A significant portion of the support for low income Americans is delivered through housing vouchers, free school breakfasts, lunches and take-away meals, free mobile phones with nearly unlimited data, college-level grants and non-recourse loans, SNAP (food allowances), etc., etc..
Compared to “living in poverty,” if we treat “living close to poverty” as a real thing, we will soon be dealing in the number of Americans “affected by poverty.” In other words, these concepts are mush.
John77 is correct, above; defining “living close to poverty” as 50% of median is of course not half the population. To Barks, Tim often notes that most of our measurements of poverty exclude income from those anti-poverty programs (a clever way of ensuring that the measured problem never goes away, nor do the disbursors’ jobs).
Poverty has joined racism and Fascism to have no meaning, just a label to hang on whatever uninformed prejudice the speaker is promoting.
The real poverty is in their thinking and intellect.