At least that's a coherent argument, although I would rely on institutions, groups, and organizations who support, work with, and monitor the poor to make judgements on who is actually poor. I seriously doubt the statistics from institutions like the Heritage Foundation and I seriously doubt that many poor people are watching premium cable channels, that 40% own their own homes, that 30% have 2 cars, or that a third have automatic dishwashers or have 2 rooms per person.
That's a report concucted to suit an agenda, not one designed to chronicle the life of poor Americans.
Here is an important caveat to that report which you may have missed ...
The Census Bureau defines an individual as poor if his or her family income falls below certain specified income thresholds. These thresholds vary by family size. In 2002, a family of four was deemed poor if its annual income fell below $18,556; a family of three was deemed poor if annual income was below $14,702. There are a number of problems with the Census Bureau's poverty figures: Census undercounts income, ignores assets accumulated in prior years, and disregards non-cash welfare such as food stamps and public housing in its official count of income. However, the most important problem with Census figures is that, even if a family's income falls below the official poverty thresholds, the family's actual living conditions are likely to be far higher than the image most Americans have in mind when they hear the word "poverty."
This report isn't talking about poor people or poverty, just those who have fallen belown almost $19,000.
That is the point of the article. The organizations that define poverty and determine who is defined as poor look at incomplete information. Your groups, organizations and institutes you talk about rely on census bureau information to guide their policy. They decide that if your income is below X for family size, you are poor.
Your own caveat, however, admits that when determining poverty level, non-cash assistance is not accounted for. And knowing a family first hand, I know what those non-cash programs add up to.
In monetary terms, taken from local conditions where I live, a family of three (single parent with two children under school age) the monthly non-cash benefits available are:
A three bedroom apartment (because the children are of opposite gender) worth $750 if rented w/o housing assistance, but reduced to $25 because she is classified as poor.
$332 in food stamps plus $135 in WIC vouchers. That's a total of $467 for food. My son's family of four has less than that in their grocery budget feeding two teenagers!
$360/mo per child daycare assistance.
Then they also get $326 cash payments from another housing assistance agency.
The adult works p/t at Walmart, and gets about $620/mo net pay. Out of that $620, she pays for cable TV that includes 3 premium channels, a cell phone service that includes unlimited text messaging and other add-ons ($87 phone bill) and a premium cable internet service. Every year for the past 3 years she has gotten over $2500 back from her tax return due to child tax credits and earned income credit. This year she got over $3500 because of the second child.
Every year she spends her tax return getting a different car. Used, but usually quite nice, with about a $250/mo payment that also comes out of her paycheck.
I know this situation quite intimately because the adult I am talking about is my youngest niece of my youngest sister. She is almost constantly broke and always asking me for help, because she wastes her money on non-necessities. She comes to me because her mother abandoned her when she was 15, and ran away with some shyster asshole about 6 years ago. Her dead beat father is in jail. (Typical Native American family, according to many locals here.)
My son has a 3 bedroom house also, which he is paying for. He is on his 12th year of a 30 year mortgage. (Thank GOD he didn't fall for one of those mortgage plans that calls for a big interest increase and balloon payment!!) He has two cars because both he and his wife are teachers who work in different schools. Both cars are over 10 years old. They choose not to afford cable TV, and get DSL with their land line phone service, only because the combined package is cheaper than paying for two lines and a dial up service.
My son has followed in my footsteps, and purchases almost nothing on credit. His house and doctor bills are his only regular monthly payments. But his wife got sick a couple years back, and even though they had good insurance from the school district, they ended up with a big pile of medical bills.
As a recently retired member of the Marine Corps, I was involved with Toys for Tots for almost 30 years. Toys for Tots also relied on the agencies you describe as knowing who is poor to determine who got on our list.
Of those 30 years I was involved, 15 of them I helped to deliver the toys to the homes on our list. In about 3 of 4 of the cases the families receiving toys from Toys for Tots were enjoying better living conditions than many whom would be considered middle class. I saw it first hand, newer cars, bigger than average TVs getting HBO and Cinemax, and all the other items described in the article you are disregarding.
I have other experiences seeing first hand how our society is mis-defining poverty. You can go ahead and rely on reports from your so-called expert agencies, but I'll rely on the reality of experience.
But think about this: If we were to redefine poverty to match the definition of poverty through out the rest of the world, these agencies would have far less to do, wouldn't they? And less to do means certain workers who run around telling us how bad things are, would no longer have jobs.
(Not to mention who would the poor vote for if they weren't told how bad off they are, and who is available to help them?)
