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Why are today's poor (U.S.) more miserable than a century + ago?

Why are today's poor more miserable?


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So feeling "left out", in your opinion, somehow makes their lives worse? Left out of what, exactly? They have every opportunity given to them so they can advance, which is something they absolutely did not have a hundred+ years ago.

Because workforce competition is a new thing. Ever heard of the Irish? Same ****, different century.

I think youre missing my point.

The poor a hundred years ago came from generations of hopeless poverty.

OUR poor were coming up nicely from the 50s to the eighties, more than a generation saw real progress out of poverty.

Then the eighties came with trickle down economics and the poors upward limb came to a stop.

So the once hopeful for a better life now see less ability to improve their lot than their parents and grandparents because there is less chance to improve their lot. (And this isn't reserved to the poor).

So theyre not more miserable than the poor of a hundred years ago but more hope8less than the poor of thirty years ago.
 
Everyone was more miserable 100 years ago. Actually, I have no idea if that's true. Everyone was poorer 100 years ago. Can't really compare overall happiness. Society and technology have marched on, changing the way we live. The standard of living has increased. The poor of today are just as far below today's standard as the poor a century ago were below that era's standard. Being poor didn't suddenly stop sucking when we invented air conditioning. The premise of this thread is silly. The point is the gap, the distance from the standard of living, not how technology has altered where that standard is.

Of course, the poorest of today truly aren't much better off than the poorest of a century ago. The plight of a homeless person on the street corner (many of whom have some kind of mental illness) is exactly what it was a century ago.
 
Everyone was more miserable 100 years ago. Actually, I have no idea if that's true. Everyone was poorer 100 years ago. Can't really compare overall happiness. Society and technology have marched on, changing the way we live. The standard of living has increased. The poor of today are just as far below today's standard as the poor a century ago were below that era's standard. Being poor didn't suddenly stop sucking when we invented air conditioning. The premise of this thread is silly. The point is the gap, the distance from the standard of living, not how technology has altered where that standard is.

Of course, the poorest of today truly aren't much better off than the poorest of a century ago. The plight of a homeless person on the street corner (many of whom have some kind of mental illness) is exactly what it was a century ago.
You make good points, and one which I was alluding to in my post. What is "happy"? How is it measured?

I'm thinking it's more of a mindset. Expectations. I could see where people in 1912 didn't expect more, so while they knew life sucked, they dealt with it as best they could. Fast forward to 2012, and people are bombarded and told how much life sucks on a daily basis, hence they dwell on it.
 
I think youre missing my point.

The poor a hundred years ago came from generations of hopeless poverty.
If you don't want to talk about them, why is the thread title "Why are today's poor (U.S.) more miserable than a century + ago?" The poor a hundred years ago were still US Citizen living in the US, just as many of todays poor are from countries like Mexico. The only thing that changed in that aspect is where the immigrants are coming from.


OUR poor were coming up nicely from the 50s to the eighties, more than a generation saw real progress out of poverty.

Then the eighties came with trickle down economics and the poors upward limb came to a stop.

So the once hopeful for a better life now see less ability to improve their lot than their parents and grandparents because there is less chance to improve their lot. (And this isn't reserved to the poor).

So theyre not more miserable than the poor of a hundred years ago but more hope8less than the poor of thirty years ago.

And still, the poor today have far more opportunities available to them than they had even 30 years ago. In the 80's, you think you'd ever be able to get a college grant just for walking into a school's financial aid office? Or go to an unemployment office that actually had real jobs set up just for the indigent who want to work? People today have it so good, and they don't even realize it. In 2007, I was homeless in California, which is a pretty crappy place to be homeless. I took the available opportunities that were given to me, pulled myself up from the gutter, and started doing something with my life. Without outside help, that wouldn't have been possible for me, and that outside help didn't exist in the 80's, and damn sure didn't exist in the 50's.
 
You make good points, and one which I was alluding to in my post. What is "happy"? How is it measured?

I'm thinking it's more of a mindset. Expectations. I could see where people in 1912 didn't expect more, so while they knew life sucked, they dealt with it as best they could. Fast forward to 2012, and people are bombarded and told how much life sucks on a daily basis, hence they dwell on it.

I'm confused, are you saying that people have higher or lower expectations about the quality of life? And either way, how about our solution not be about changing expectations, but in making life not suck? Like by taking care of people when they're sick or injured, for example. Or making sure that they have a roof over their heads?
 
I'm confused, are you saying that people have higher or lower expectations about the quality of life? And either way, how about our solution not be about changing expectations, but in making life not suck? Like by taking care of people when they're sick or injured, for example. Or making sure that they have a roof over their heads?
You are indeed confused. Let me see if I can help. The poor of yore understood that it was up to them to improve their lives. Many, if not most of today's poor are so because of a combination of questionable upbringing and/or intellect which spawns form one generation to the next. The only thing you can try to do is level the playing field (universal education). Those who take advantage of opportunity are to be congratulated, but no amount of self-righteous pontification nor entitlements is likely to make a significant dent on factors that are so deeply ingrained. They never have.

Heresy to some, I'm sure.
 
You are indeed confused. Let me see if I can help. The poor of yore understood that it was up to them to improve their lives. Many, if not most of today's poor are so because of a combination of questionable upbringing and/or intellect which spawns form one generation to the next. The only thing you can try to do is level the playing field (universal education). Those who take advantage of opportunity are to be congratulated, but no amount of self-righteous pontification nor entitlements is likely to make a significant dent on factors that are so deeply ingrained. They never have.

Heresy to some, I'm sure.

Not so much heresy as grossly inaccurate. The lazy and stupid people you're talking about are a tiny portion of the poor. Most are hardworking, just like everybody else. If there is a problem of attitude, it's because all their hard work isn't paying off.
 
If you don't want to talk about them, why is the thread title "Why are today's poor (U.S.) more miserable than a century + ago?" The poor a hundred years ago were still US Citizen living in the US, just as many of todays poor are from countries like Mexico. The only thing that changed in that aspect is where the immigrants are coming from.




And still, the poor today have far more opportunities available to them than they had even 30 years ago. In the 80's, you think you'd ever be able to get a college grant just for walking into a school's financial aid office? Or go to an unemployment office that actually had real jobs set up just for the indigent who want to work? People today have it so good, and they don't even realize it. In 2007, I was homeless in California, which is a pretty crappy place to be homeless. I took the available opportunities that were given to me, pulled myself up from the gutter, and started doing something with my life. Without outside help, that wouldn't have been possible for me, and that outside help didn't exist in the 80's, and damn sure didn't exist in the 50's.

You must be young. Financial aid was available to students in the eighties. As was unemployment insurance.
 
I'm confused, are you saying that people have higher or lower expectations about the quality of life? And either way, how about our solution not be about changing expectations, but in making life not suck? Like by taking care of people when they're sick or injured, for example. Or making sure that they have a roof over their heads?
Higher to the point of being unrealistic. Not everybody can fly off to the south of France for a film festival, ya know.
 
Not so much heresy as grossly inaccurate. The lazy and stupid people you're talking about are a tiny portion of the poor. Most are hardworking, just like everybody else. If there is a problem of attitude, it's because all their hard work isn't paying off.
Don't take it personally. I don't know if you are hard-working or lazy.
 
Hahahaha... WHAT?

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These are the poor a century ago. Dying from diarrhea, no job prospects, discriminated against, resorting to prostitution is not an option but a necessity. How... the hell are the poor today more miserable today than a century ago?

This is because they settled in a city. Those who went out to the countryside could feed themselves from the land, build shelter and even homestead. There were no licenses to build or fish or hunt and there was still much open wilderness.
 
Yes but it's harder to achieve much of anything if you don't have an education, you're constantly sick, and you're worried about where your next meal is coming from.

Plenty of money is being spent on education.
 
Yes but it's harder to achieve much of anything if you don't have an education, you're constantly sick, and you're worried about where your next meal is coming from.

If those things happen than the person is mentally deficient.
They either get a job or mooch off of the government or charity organizations. If you live in this country and you don't have an education, you're constantly sick, and you're worried about where your next meal is coming from, you get taken care of.
 
Maybe they aren't then. But if they're not, it's sure been made to seem like they are. How many times have we been reminded (by liberals) that "the poor are getting poorer"? I'm constantly reading sob story after sob story about the nation's poor. "And then he got sick and lost his job and so he didn't have insurance and had huge doctor bills and oh my goodness it's JUST NOT FAIR!" Of course it's not. Never has been, never will be. It sucks hardcore. But anyway, what are we to assume about the misery-level of the nation's poor with all these constant bleating reminders about the poor getting worse off and worse off, but to presume that people weren't so upset about it all back then?



(SNIP!)



Thhhank you.



Well put.

I think that is the point right there.

We hear stories about "the poor" being miserable or not having this or that but we don't hear much from the people themselves.

We are told what to think about it, which is the authors point of view, and not the real story.

I also think the line in which people say divides the poor from the middle class has moved a long way in the past 100 years.

If poor people had 10% of the stuff and opportunities 100 years ago that "the poor" have today, they would have been rich.
 
NOBODY had those things 100 years ago.

Except heat. EVERYBODY'S had that for a long time.

I am pretty sure actual poor people in other countries do not have not have those things either.
 
#1) In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1.* Since the year 2000, that*ratio has*exploded to*between 300 to 500 to one.

#2) A*USA Today analysis of government data has found that paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of 2010.* During the same time period, government benefits (Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, food stamps, etc.)*rose to a record high.*

#3) According to the United Nations, the United States now*has the highest level of income inequality of all of the highly industrialized nations.

#4) Four of the biggest banks in the United States*(Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup)*had a "perfect quarter" with zero days of trading losses during the first quarter of 2010.

#5) According to economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, two-thirds of income increases in the United States between 2002 and 2007 went to the wealthiest 1% of all*Americans.

#6) 39.68 million Americans*are now on food stamps, which represents a new all-time record.* But things look like they are going to get even worse.* The U.S. Department of Agriculture*is forecasting*that enrollment in the food stamp program will exceed 43 million Americans in 2011.

#7) For the first time in*U.S. history,*banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.

#8) Over*just one three day period, approximately 10,000 people showed up to apply for just 90 jobs making washing machines in Kentucky for $27,000 a year.

#9) Executives at many of the*big banks*that received*massive amounts of government bailout money during the*financial crisis*are being lavished with record bonuses*as millions of other*Americans continue to suffer.

#10) Younger generations of Americans are particularly struggling.* For example, according to*a National Foundation for Credit Counseling survey, only 58% of those in "Generation Y"*pay their monthly bills on time.

#11) Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.

#12) Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented*a 32 percent increase over 2008.* Not only that, more Americans filed for bankruptcy*in March 2010*than during any month since U.S. bankruptcy law was tightened in October 2005.

#13) An analysis of income tax data by the Congressional Budget Office a*couple years*ago found that the top 1%*wealthiest households in the United States now*own nearly twice as much of the corporate wealth*as they did just 15 years ago.

#14) A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.

#15) Once great blue collar manufacturing cities such as Detroit have turned into rusted-out war zones*while corporate executives rake in record bonuses by moving factories to third world nations.

#16) The bottom 40 percent of*income earners*in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent*of the nation’s wealth.* So what does that say about America when nearly half the people are dividing up just one percent of the pie?

Full Article Here:

16 Signs That The Rich Are Getting Richer And The Poor Are Getting Poorer

What does any of this have to do with the question inthe OP?
 
Kind of a trick response, but i think that todays.poor feel left out because si ce about 1980 they have been.

From the fifties to the eighties, the lowest fifth was actuall seeing their lot improve MORE than the upper 80%.

For more than thirty years they have stagnated or lost ground.

They're competing with $2 a day labor in a country with $500 rents.

So maybe not miserable so much as hopeless. Which i guess could make one miserable.

And i'm sure there were some at aome point who claimed the poor weren't poor because they had indoor plumbing.

"Better than elsewhere" is the ultimate slippery slope.

Its better in Mexico than it is in Somalia. That doesnt mean its great in Mexico.

What is wrong with Mexico?
 
I think that is the point right there.

We hear stories about "the poor" being miserable or not having this or that but we don't hear much from the people themselves.

We are told what to think about it, which is the authors point of view, and not the real story.

I also think the line in which people say divides the poor from the middle class has moved a long way in the past 100 years.

If poor people had 10% of the stuff and opportunities 100 years ago that "the poor" have today, they would have been rich.
Think about it; the poor get it five to ten years later. DVD players used to be expensive, now you can get one for $20. Color TV used to be for rich people, now poor people have at least one if not more.
The poor in this country live better than kings 100 years ago.
 
Think about it; the poor get it five to ten years later. DVD players used to be expensive, now you can get one for $20. Color TV used to be for rich people, now poor people have at least one if not more.
The poor in this country live better than kings 100 years ago.

You think poor people wait 5 to 10 years to buy, sorry not buy but get, the latest technology?

Please go out on the street and see how many "poor people" are driving cars all dolled up with rims and stereos and have the latest phones.
 
What is wrong with Mexico?

90% of the wealth in the hands of a couple percent of the population.

Sure are a lot of people risking their lives to get out.
 
90% of the wealth in the hands of a couple percent of the population.

Sure are a lot of people risking their lives to get out.

People in Mexico are just like anywhere else.

They work their jobs and take care of their families.

Sure there are poor, just like in the US but that is their choice.

If you have no house, and live out in the middle of nowhere, why have 5 or 6 children?

As for the people "risking their lives to get out", those are the losers that can't do anything for themselves. The US can have them. Mexico is better off without them. If they put the same effort into working in Mexico that they do leaving, they would be able to take care fo their family just as well as any job they can find inthe US.
 
great thread topic, Malthus.

Being impoverished in North America is not being poor by any measure. I have to agree with how many of the questions were phrased: we have created a culture of entitlement and dependance. Another really important factor is urbanization. If you are "poor" in a very dense urban core neighbourhood, you have nothing around you but more people who have built a microeconomic and cultural system around welfare and crime, so what else do you expect them to know? A poor person in a small community is fully exposed to others of different situation and aspirations and has other role models to emulate. Add to that: there is a considerable "industry" built up around the entitled, and it serves itself very well by measuring and promoting more government participation in what puts bread on THEIR table.

BTW: the number is now 47 million on food stamps. That is a long way beyond inner city ghettos. The only "recovery" has been on Wall Street, not Main Street - and there are precious few inside of the Beltway who seem to give a damn.

To reply to the OP: what we need to do is to go back to work and give some impetus to get OFF of entitlements (I like the idea of negative flat tax to give a nice pathway out of the 'hood).
 
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You think poor people wait 5 to 10 years to buy, sorry not buy but get, the latest technology?

Please go out on the street and see how many "poor people" are driving cars all dolled up with rims and stereos and have the latest phones.
Those aren’t poor people those are people that are living the dream. I haven’t worked in a year and I have a new lap top and high speed internet. I also just ate stake for lunch. What a horrible system we live in.
(I’m joining the army because I don’t want to continue to be a moocher)
 
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