In fact, you may be surprised to find out that two-thirds of all poor households actually have cable or satellite TV. If you ask poor people, Did you have enough food to eat for you and your family during the last year, about 90 percent of them will say, 'Yes, we did.' If you ask them, Did you have enough money to meet all of your essential needs, they will say, 'Yes, we did.' About 70 percent of poor people have air conditioning. Close to half of all poor people actually own their own homes. |
The biggest shortcoming is that the Census Bureau fails to account for some $400 billion in welfare and Social Security and Medicare benefits that flow to the bottom quarter of the population. So the income count itself is almost absurdly inaccurate and incomplete. |
When the average American hears the word 'poverty,' they are thinking about someone who lacks a reasonable, warm, dry place to live, lacks adequate food for their children, perhaps lacks clothing, something like that. Virtually none of the people that we currently define as poor are poor in that sense. |