Congressmen's incomes triple while America gets poorer

[Denny Crane]

Ok, you are getting closer. Now let's note that government contractors and lobbyists are all, 100%, private sector employees.

So it has nothing to do with transfer of wealth to government workers.

barfo

They're still govt. workers. They're called civilian contractors, among other terms. The point still stands tho... We're being asked to pay higher taxes to support it all.

 

[blazerboy30]

America is clearly in good shape.

That isn't the question. Are Americans actually "poorer" than they were in the past? Or are you just spewing the liberal bumper sticker lines?

 

[MARIS61]

Is America actually "getting poorer"? No, it is actually Maris just trolling again.

You're the one who's trolling.

http://news.yahoo.com/us-poverty-track-rise-highest-since-1960s-112946547--finance.html

http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/07/23/national-poverty-rate-approaching-pre-great-society-highs/

http://everythinglubbock.com/fulltext?nxd_id=112082

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/levels-unseen-u-s-poverty-rate-on-track-to-be-highest-since-1960s/

 

[Denny Crane]

That isn't the question. Are Americans actually "poorer" than they were in the past? Or are you just spewing the liberal bumper sticker lines?

Obamanomics is about making everyone poorer and more dependent on govt. At least that's how it's working out.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-09-13/census-household-income/50383882/1

Granted it's a year old, but welfare being up, median household income down, etc. It's hard to argue we're being more prosperous under Obama than before.

 

[blazerboy30]

You're the one who's trolling.

http://news.yahoo.com/us-poverty-track-rise-highest-since-1960s-112946547--finance.html

http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/07/23/national-poverty-rate-approaching-pre-great-society-highs/

http://everythinglubbock.com/fulltext?nxd_id=112082

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/levels-unseen-u-s-poverty-rate-on-track-to-be-highest-since-1960s/

And now the "poor" have flatscreen TVs, Playstations, cars, refrigerators, credit cards, better healthcare, etc, etc.

Come back after doing some research and you'll realize the so called "poor" have it better now than any time in history.

 

[blazerboy30]

Obamanomics is about making everyone poorer and more dependent on govt. At least that's how it's working out.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-09-13/census-household-income/50383882/1

Granted it's a year old, but welfare being up, median household income down, etc. It's hard to argue we're being more prosperous under Obama than before.

It isn't about Obama or the last few years.

How many of the country's bottom 1% would trade places with the bottom 1% from 40 years ago?

 

[Denny Crane]

It isn't about Obama or the last few years.

How many of the country's bottom 1% would trade places with the bottom 1% from 40 years ago?

The bottom 1% had a very different lifestyle 40 years ago. There were a lot more small farms where people were able to at least feed themselves while living below the poverty line.

 

[blazerboy30]

The bottom 1% had a very different lifestyle 40 years ago. There were a lot more small farms where people were able to at least feed themselves while living below the poverty line.

So you think most of today's bottom 1% would trade places with the bottom 1% of 40 years ago?

 

[Denny Crane]

So you think most of today's bottom 1% would trade places with the bottom 1% of 40 years ago?

The bottom 1% are homeless. In 1970, about 40 years ago, the homeless were a fraction of 1%.

You tell me.

 

[blazerboy30]

The bottom 1% are homeless. In 1970, about 40 years ago, the homeless were a fraction of 1%.

You tell me.

Keep avoiding the question, Denny. Nice.

 

[Denny Crane]

Keep avoiding the question, Denny. Nice.

I answered your question quite directly. I don't think someone not homeless would trade "up" to be homeless, do you?

Maybe you want to ask about the bottom 20%...

Even then, the bottom 20% 40 years ago aren't bottom 20% now. People move up in life - economists call it mobility.

And I know a lot of people who make well below the median income (like $28K vs $43K) who I wouldn't call poor at all.

 

[blazerboy30]

I answered your question quite directly. I don't think someone not homeless would trade "up" to be homeless, do you?

You answered it using a completely made-up statistic. 1% of America is not homeless today, and that wasn't true 40 years ago. 1% of America is about 3.1 million people. It is estimated that there were about 600k homeless in 2011, or about 0.2%

Link

The rest of your ramblings are completely irrelevant.

Do you want to try again?

 

[Denny Crane]

You answered it using a completely made-up statistic. 1% of America is not homeless today, and that wasn't true 40 years ago. 1% of America is about 3.1 million people. It is estimated that there were about 600k homeless in 2011, or about 0.2%

Link

The rest of your ramblings are completely irrelevant.

Do you want to try again?

The real number of homeless people is ~3M. The report you cite is people they counted (were able to count). In fact, if you read your link, it says, " Point-in-time count methodologies vary and are imperfect and as such the aggregated numbers do not represent a precise count of homeless people."

Wikipedia says this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States

As many as 3.5 million people experience homelessness in a given year (1% of the entire U.S. population or 10% of its poor), and about 842,000 people in any given week.[21][22]

Or:

http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/How_Many.html

There are several national estimates of homelessness. Many are dated, or based on dated information. For all of the reasons discussed above, none of these estimates is the definitive representation of "how many people are homeless.” In a recent approximation USA Today estimated 1.6 million people unduplicated persons used transitional housing or emergency shelters. Of these people, approximately 1/3 are members of households with children, a nine percent increase since 2007. Another approximation is from a study done by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty which states that approximately 3.5 million people, 1.35 million of them children, are likely to experience homelessness in a given year (National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, 2007).

These numbers, based on findings from the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, Urban Institute and specifically the National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers, draw their estimates from a study of service providers across the country at two different times of the year in 1996. They found that, on a given night in October, 444,000 people (in 346,000 households) experienced homelessness – which translates to 6.3% of the population of people living in poverty. On a given night in February, 842,000 (in 637,000 households) experienced homelessness – which translates to almost 10% of the population of people living in poverty. Converting these estimates into an annual projection, the numbers that emerge are 2.3 million people (based on the October estimate) and 3.5 million people (based on the February estimate). This translates to approximately 1% of the U.S. population experiencing homelessness each year, 38% (October) to 39% (February) of them being children (Urban Institute 2000).

It is also important to note that this study was based on a national survey of service providers. Since not all people experiencing homelessness utilize service providers, the actual numbers of people experiencing homelessness are likely higher than those found in the study, Thus, we are estimating on the high end of the study’s numbers: 3.5 million people, 39% of which are children (Urban Institute 2000).

===

 

[Denny Crane]

As for the rest of my "rambling," I suggested maybe your question would be better asked about the lower 20% of earners. The cutoff to make that bottom 20% is $18,500 per year for a "household" (includes one or more earners).

The cutoff to make the bottom 1% is $2500/year.

You sure you want to continue with the bottom 1% are doing great thing?

 

[drexlersdad]

2500 would buy like 10 ps3's, totally rad

 

[blazerboy30]

As for the rest of my "rambling," I suggested maybe your question would be better asked about the lower 20% of earners. The cutoff to make that bottom 20% is $18,500 per year for a "household" (includes one or more earners).

The cutoff to make the bottom 1% is $2500/year.

You sure you want to continue with the bottom 1% are doing great thing?

Just the fact that you want to keep using income as the metric to compare shows that you don't understand the issue. The articles already talked about income, and it is a silly argument to make to show that people are worse off today than they were 30 or 40 years ago.

But sure, use the bottom 20% as defined by income. Do you think they would want to trade places with the bottom 20% of 40 years ago?

 

[MARIS61]

They're still govt. workers. They're called civilian contractors, among other terms. The point still stands tho... We're being asked to pay higher taxes to support it all.

No, they are private sector employees bilking the taxpayer through fraud and bribery. You can thank Ronnie Reagan for their control of your government.

 

[Denny Crane]

Just the fact that you want to keep using income as the metric to compare shows that you don't understand the issue. The articles already talked about income, and it is a silly argument to make to show that people are worse off today than they were 30 or 40 years ago.

But sure, use the bottom 20% as defined by income. Do you think they would want to trade places with the bottom 20% of 40 years ago?

You ask what you think is a simple question, but the answer isn't so simple. I mentioned mobility in a previous post. This is the effect where people start out their careers in the bottom 20% of earners and end up in the top 20% of earners along the way. Very few people are stuck in that bottom 20% or 10% for their careers.

Maybe you're asking about buying power. So today you can buy many things for a lot less money than they cost 40 years ago. But if you want an education or a complex medical procedure, you're going to be paying a LOT more. Housing is also ridiculously more expensive today, even with the market crash. Food is more expensive, too. So is gasoline.

Maybe you're asking about govt. programs. We're spending a $trillion in debt each year to support a lot of people. 99 weeks of unemployment in most places, and people are enrolling in Social Security's disability program when those 99 weeks expire.

Having lived through the past 40 years, I find that while the intention is good, keeping people reliant on govt. programs to survive destroys the peoples' spirits and does limit a person's mobility. It's never been worse than today.

Or maybe you want to compare our poor with the poor in other countries. In Mexico, a good job pays $300/month, and those jobs are few and far between. I've been there and seen their poor living in huts that look like they came from Gilligan's Island (bamboo walls and palm leaf roofs). I think all but that bottom 1% here who live on the streets and eat out of dumpsters wouldn't trade places.

 

[Denny Crane]

No, they are private sector employees bilking the taxpayer through fraud and bribery. You can thank Ronnie Reagan for their control of your government.

You confuse Reagan with JFK and LBJ. The previous president warned us of the military-industrial complex. Those two ignored the warning and gave us Vietnam.

 

[blazerboy30]

You ask what you think is a simple question, but the answer isn't so simple. I mentioned mobility in a previous post. This is the effect where people start out their careers in the bottom 20% of earners and end up in the top 20% of earners along the way. Very few people are stuck in that bottom 20% or 10% for their careers.

Irrelevant to this discussion.

Maybe you're asking about buying power. So today you can buy many things for a lot less money than they cost 40 years ago. But if you want an education or a complex medical procedure, you're going to be paying a LOT more.

Those exist today even though they didn't 40 years ago. This is a terrible argument.

Housing is also ridiculously more expensive today, even with the market crash.

The bottom group of people aren't buying and never were buying their own homes. Again, irrelevant.

Food is more expensive, too.

No it isn't.

So is gasoline.

The bottom group of people likely don't own their cars and are taking public transportation.

Maybe you're asking about govt. programs. We're spending a $trillion in debt each year to support a lot of people. 99 weeks of unemployment in most places, and people are enrolling in Social Security's disability program when those 99 weeks expire.

Having lived through the past 40 years, I find that while the intention is good, keeping people reliant on govt. programs to survive destroys the peoples' spirits and does limit a person's mobility. It's never been worse than today.

Or maybe you want to compare our poor with the poor in other countries. In Mexico, a good job pays $300/month, and those jobs are few and far between. I've been there and seen their poor living in huts that look like they came from Gilligan's Island (bamboo walls and palm leaf roofs). I think all but that bottom 1% here who live on the streets and eat out of dumpsters wouldn't trade places.

Seriously... you're just making up random "facts" and acting like it is proof.

The point is that the poorest people have access to much more and have better lives than they ever have in history. You arguing against that is a little strange as a libertarian you should be glad that as we've increased the size of the pie, even the poor are better off.