So do you still think you can get out of poverty?

This video is old, but accurate, and the problem has only gotten worse in the last 5 years. Do you still think lower taxes on the rich really benefits the rest of us? You are delusional if you think so.

what's considered poverty?

Are you serious?

Well if i'm going to answer if i can get out of poverty then i need to know what you're considering to be the poverty level

Poor in the USA isn’t really that poor.

If you have a cell phone. You are not poor

Struggling to pay the bills, constantly teetering on the verge of homelessness, not being able to feed your family without the help of food stamps. I know that if me, or any of my family members lived separately on there own, they would end up homeless within a month.

Not really, you can pay for it in small amounts every month, or saving up little by little. I myself do not own one as I cannot afford to. I have a few family members who own phones, but we all chipped in to pay for them as gifts.

Please, for the love of Christ, can we stop saying this? I spend weekends feeding people in tent villages and raising money so they can pay medical bills - Yes, in the USA.

...you have like $400 worth of RAM in your sig

Agreed strongly. He is just spewing right wing repub talking points like an imbecile. There are parts of the US where people live in open sewage, and get infected with hookworm. America is becoming a 3rd world country because of the actions and insane greed of the top 1%.

I saved up, and used a credit card, and I was stupid for doing so, because I'm still paying it off. And the RAM was $200 at the time I bought it. It's an expensive hobby that I am passionate about, but I probably won't buying be another rig for a very long time. And the only reason I was even able to buy this rig in the first place was because of the fact that I live with quite a few people who helped cushion the blow so to speak lol. I'm still kinda kicking myself for even buying this rig, but I'm also happy to have it at the same time.

@AlexKidd5000: The math doesn't lie. Trickle down economics is unsustainable. A society is basically getting there country's economic health on the goodwill of the wealthiest. I wouldn't entrust the poorest with seats on the supreme court either. It's stupid, period. Eventually they look out for themselves and fvck the rest. That said there way too many entitlement programs with little control of how long an able bodied person can tap the govt.

Seems like a fair question.

I don't live in poverty. So, I guess yes?

But no, I don't think lowering the taxes on the super rich will do anything for me.

^ this.

also: I'm pretty sure nobody on this forum can claim to live in poverty or they have a much different definition of poverty from me.

I've gotten out of poverty.

Then poverty got up to me again. I didn't gain less, but inflation sure caught up and wages did not.

I'm not a democrat or a republican so I don't know what you're blabbering about.

You sure talk the republican talk.

LOL called out and #rekt

Absolute poverty and relative poverty.

I don't live in poverty but I do believe that most Americans are poor based on this definition(anecdotal and provided to me by my dad prior to marriage): Can you sustain yourself and your family for six months without a paycheck?

If the answer to the above question is -no-That is my definition of poor. However being poor and living in poverty are two very different things. SEVERAL Americans are living paycheck to paycheck(i.e. poor) but not necessarily living in poverty.

Living in poverty means not living to a minimum standard of health and safety. Conditions such as no running water, no shelter or clothes, etc.

To answer your question though TC tax cuts for the uber elite don't benefit the middle class.

The person asking for the definition of poverty hit it on the nose. To be fair you can say we already beat poverty. We live in the fattest country in the world because for the first time in history the overwhelming majority of our population can casually choose to have an incredibly high caloric intake. That is a crazy new concept when we are talking about problems that have existed from the dawn of civilization. So many people can eat so much that people are saying obesity is a health risk to the poor.

That is a huge win over poverty right there, and that is without getting into the fact that poor people casually walk around with the ability to instantaneously communicate with a billion other people. Should we suddenly stop trying to make the lives of poor people better? Of course not, but there is similarly no reason to pretend we are not making rapid progress. I mean seriously our military leaders are worried the peasants might be so overfed that they are unfit for war. That might be the farthest away from poverty a society has ever been.

Food riots are still a thing in the modern world, but the idea of one happening in America is completely foreign. Outside of something like the looting of a Walmart after a hurricane. What you might want to ask is: "Will we ever beat wealth inequality?"

Actually the reason people are bigger is because the junk food....ie high calories is cheaper than the healthy food. So you have that ass backwards.

@drlostrib: Family of 4 @ $24,500 annual income. Based on US gov't published 2015 poverty measure.

Bear in mind that the rate is national and does not account for regional cost of living, etc. But it does give you an indication. Poverty rate is relatively stable at approx. 13-15% over the last 50 years, but that is also expected since the measure is indexed to CPI.

Obviously it is possible to get out of poverty as many have, but clearly it isn't possible for a large number of people. Student poverty is an example of transient status. The real issue is chronic poverty, especially at the lower end and in populations that cannot do anything about it. Old folks and children are examples of the latter.

IMO, the US social safety net is deplorable and inexcusable for such a wealthy country.

you guys are missing the point of the OP. The question is not really in the title, the real question is in the body.

. Do you still think lower taxes on the rich really benefits the rest of us?

you see the real question is not about poverty

No. Only a fool believes that..........like the conservatives in Congress and trump.

Some wealth inequality is good. Some. As with everything else in life, in moderation. Yours is getting extreme.

Hmmm, it depends, my brother in law emigrated to the States and arrived there pennyless as a teenager, worked hard washing cars and now owns two car washers, employs 20 people ( hand washed cars, not machine washed ), lives in a nice house, has several vehicles ( including a brand new Camaro ) and has money to spend, so he made it out from poverty; he is just one of several relatives and friends who migrated to America in the same situation, so IMO, yes, in America if you work hard you can rise from poverty.

Poverty in America isn't bad relative to what exactly? Starving African countries? North Korea? By every measure the US is a way worse place to live for the majority of people than the rest of the developed world. Every other developed country has universal healthcare, free or cheap higher education, better social programs. I don't get people who claim to be patriotic, but celebrate our quality of life being mediocre compared to other countries.

Also Trump and members of congress don't believe for a second that trickle down economics works. They know that when you give tax breaks to the super rich, they just keep the money. Trump is a billionaire. Members of congress are millionaires backed by 1 percenters and corporations. They are scamming idiots so they can make off with huge amounts of money for themselves and their wealthy donors at the expense of working class people. We're descending into third world status and full blown kleptocracy.

You sure see what you only want to see.

The idiocy and partisanship that centrists have to deal with.

Yeah no. I have no preconceived notions about anyone's political leanings. I do however read their posts. Perhaps you're not really a centrist........you just say you are.

They'll never stop saying this because they still think its 1980.

you know refugees in those camps from sudan?? Most of them have smart phones. Its 2017 and cell phones are fairly cheap to get. You can get a 5 year old smart phone for literally pennies in these 3rd world countries because our junk is their treasure.

When you see refugees rocking samsung galaxy S8+ or the iphone X, thats when you should start to get suspicious.

the rise in wealth inequality is a result of government bureaucracies being more powerful and enforcable than any time in history, coupled with vast technology improvements as well as the communist government patents/IP system protecting these technologies assets on behalf of the rich. Take out the patents system that's holding the free market back and inequality gets wiped out tomorrow.

The only reason we even need to tax the rich is the socialist patents system that's dicking over 99% of people. Get rid of patents and taxing the rich is un necessary. Following that logic, as long as a patents system exists, the rich that are profiting from this scam should be taxed out of their ass.

In fact, I don't have any problem putting my hand out and askin for my piece of the pie. Whether that's in welfare, foodstamps, etc etc. As far as I'm concerned, I already paid for these things with my slave labour.

Oh yah, don't get me started on the dumb sheep who claim patents drive innovation. Patents only drive one thing--monopolies and concentration of wealth.

It's a pretty simple, well defined line. 1 person is $13,860. Family of 2 is $18,670...etc. However those people are living better than poor people in other 1st world countries. 90 million American's are on welfare with benefits totaling over $60,000 per year. That's more than some working class people make.

Another interesting fact is that about 25 % of those under 34 yrs old still live at home with mommy. An entire 1/4 of all under 34 years old...think about that, it blows my mind every time. I was packing my bags after my graduation dinner.

Do you always believe everything you read and watch or is this one of those rare moments? The stats presented alone should have given it away. People love charts and graphs because it's easy consumption, negating the facts regarding the numbers polled. Look at what's not presented in that 6 minute video. Did this guy get his notes from Pew research org? lol

Funny how agenda's work between think tanks.

Then you haven't read enough of mine, or you're so far to the left than anything right of Marxist is considered to be a republican or a conservative.

I don't know any Republican that would vote for Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein, which I did.

I tell people I don't care about left or right, democrat or republican, I only care about policies that can function and experimenting in a bubbling economy such as this is the only way to elevate that bubble from bursting. Anyone realize how close we are gaining towards another bust? Right now, our economy is good but stale in certain sectors, now is the only good time to experiment. Too many don't realize or understand how we are exceeding intrinsic value, there are 5 economic bubbles right now, but instead they read too much Facebook and listen to groups with agenda's. The politicians as groups understand better than anyone how to socially work people's opinions while negating the details of the facts.

The classic warnings of a big market top that everyone is ignoring are

• very tight credit
• very low volatility
• general complacency
• short rates rising, curves flattening. *ahem...welcome to 2017 everyone!!

Now it may not be a long term top because at some point, renewed money flows come in, such as a large company stock buyback, surprising earnings but still the point is that most of the average joe's out there are completely ignoring the signs because, I dunno, phone stuff, girls? facebook? and instead just listen to the easily digestible and consumable media...why not just let strangers on the street boss you around while you're at it?...these are the same people that are voters and are in the majority...why does this not scare anyone?

The problem in the 2006 period when we later had that recession was that swaps on commodity indices were popular. They were seen as a new asset class, uncorrelated to everything else. So commodities were lumped together as a singular thing, yet the fundamentals for corn and oil, copper..etc are very different but those fundamentals got ignored, all commodity prices rose together and money kept plowing into the space, not making any sense. Investors believed that commodity investing had entered some kind of new paradigm...and presto, we had a global recession, flows into the commodity index swaps reversed and the price of oil and most others crashed.

So When equity index fund flows reverse....and they will, it will end very badly. Experts predict a market crash, this is why we actually need to cut taxes on the rich...well actually more in the tax reform but it's a good start, hopefully some more changes come through. But this is why the OP has no freaking clue when he claims someone like me must be delusional if anyone but the rich will benefit. It's a good economy atm, of course we will benefit..wtf?

So in closing, our economy is a complex house of cards and I think this guy I'm quoting below would be right if we didn't do the corporate tax reduction....you know, the one the OP thinks is "delusional"? because if people like me are delusional, then everyone else is blind.

John Hussman, president of the mutual fund Hussman Investment Trust, seasoned investor, and Stanford University economics PhD. Hussman says you can expect the S&P 500 to return no more than 1% on average over the next decade. Sooner than that, he predicts, the stock market may plunge as much as 60%.

Hussman, who called the tech crash of 2000 and once managed a nearly $7 billion mutual fund, calls the current environment “the most broadly overvalued moment in market history.” And he says investors shouldn’t expect much in returns from stock

Do you ever wonder why do we have to put people into groups? You realize that the grouping of people is not only a generalization of individuals, but it provides the foundation for verbal and sometimes violent attacks. So you have this Democrats hate Republicans, Left hates right or vice versa...grouping people only causes bigotry much like you find in religion.

Oh how many times I've heard people complain about Republicans or Democrats. Never do they complain about individuals without ones reference to being on a particular side, rather it's easier to hate on groups of people and identify individuals as belonging to a group isn't it? So if a politician does something bad, the public reflects on the group he belongs to despite it may not have anything to do with it.

Just something I ponder sometimes, how the world would be so much better if we didn't identify and label people into groups.

Now you're doing what you complained about......which makes you a hypocrite. Anyway I can only judge you on your posts and you come across definitely as a trump supporter.

the government just needs to take 90% of the wealth from rich people and redistribute it. Rich should subsidize the poor.

Believe whatever you want. Whatever makes you feel feel better in your delusional mind.

It create a false paradigm and sets up for a false dichotomy. I've always voted candidates based on policies and their contributions. I may not agree with every they say, but it's better than not voting if I can't agree 100% with any candidate.

I may not have agreed with Bernie on a lot of fiscal policies but he was not the pro-war candidate. Something I find more important to all fiscal policies because it's the root of it in America's war economy.

I may not have agreed with Jill Stein and her crazy conspiracy theories but she too was not a pro-war candidate.

So many presidents before Trump have always stood behind Israel and Saudi Arabia, two countries that have controlled the foreign policy of America for way too long.

I knew Trump was liar when he would say on thing one moment and another the next day. He tried hard to please both sides by pretending to be a populists.

@blaznwiipspman1: does America have large scale starvation and disease?

Do we have entire segments of our population or regions of our country out of work, dying in the streets from lack of necessities?

No.

We have small isolated cases.

But we do have millions of homeless people, and children and adults that WOULD be starving to death if not for food stamps. It's a clear indication that the top 1% are sucking america's economy dry, and leaving less and less for everyone else.

i was born out of it and never close to it.

but everything else i did by sheer pluckiness and grit. i swear.

calling bravo sierra on this one. it doesn't pass the sniff test.

source?

the rich DO subsidize the poor.

if it's such a great deal, go be poor

@AlexKidd5000: absolutely. We have safety nets.

Majority of our “poor” are doing just fine.

He's a millenial that expects everything given to him.

And you're a cretin who doesn't believe in a minimum standard of living, or healthcare as a right, and thinks poor people deserve to die if they can't afford it.