There's poverty, and then there's poverty

When I think of people living in poverty, I think of some family living on the streets of Bombay in a couple cardboard boxes with no running water. I actually saw real poverty up close when I was deployed to Macedonia for a six-month tour with an Infantry battalion in the mid-1990s; people getting around on donkey-pulled carts and little kids digging in dumpsters for food, shoes, or anything else they can find.

Compare that to this country. As teachers, my wife and I have often seen parents of children who qualify for free lunch come to pick up their kids in a nice SUV while the parent juggles a cell phone in one hand, and a Venti Starbucks Mocha in the other. I have often made the observation that what is considered poverty in this country would be considered an opulent lifestyle in much of Asia and Africa. I was more right than I realized.

A rather enlightening article came out today in National Review Online that was written by Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation. Mr. Rector lays out in the article just how rich most of our "poor" people in this country really are. This is not to say that there aren't any people in the United States that do not live in dire poverty, but the numbers aren't nearly as large as you think, and quite often, the reasons for the poverty are pretty logical and easy to rectify if only the affected people would make better life choices.

Here is the skinny on the estimated 37 million Americans who live in "poverty":

46 percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.

80 percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, in 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded; two thirds have more than two rooms per person.

The typical poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)

Nearly three quarters of poor households own a car; 31 percent own two or more cars.

97 percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.

78 percent have a VCR or DVD player.

62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.

89 percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a more than a third have an automatic dishwasher.

Not to mention, children living in poverty eat more meat on average than their well-off counterparts, and they receive 100 percent more protein per day than is recommended.

As for the people in this country who live in true poverty, Rector gives the three primary reasons for this predicament:

1.) They don't work enough hours.
2.) They don't marry, and fathers don't stick around.
3.) They are illegal aliens.

I have just laid out the framework, but there are a lot more details in the article. Give it a look-see, because it is a real eye-opener. I plan on sharing this one with my students. Many of my free-lunch students wear $150 basketball shoes.

Good Day to You, Sir