[cobra de capell]

What is wrong with the official poverty rate? It measures the wrong thing--and always has. That thing is income. But poverty is a matter of consumption, and a huge gap has come to separate income and consumption at the lower strata of our income distribution. In 2006, according to the annual Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey, reported purchases by the poorest fifth of American households were more than twice as high as reported incomes.

For reasons still only partly understood, the surfeit of spending over income among poorer U.S. households has increased dramatically since the 1970s--making income an ever less dependable predictor of living standards for the disadvantaged. Indeed, while the official poverty thresholds are meant to be constant over time, a whole host of data confirm the (welcome) fact that material conditions for our population in "poverty" have been steadily improving.

The numbers of people “living in poverty” is the raw material of the POVERTY INDUSTRY. High numbers of people living in poverty insures the employment of vast numbers of welfare workers, advocates, bureaucrats, and social workers. If this country managed to get every last AMERICAN person out of poverty, an entire “INDUSTRY” would collapse. Of course, the unemployment of vast numbers of “poverty” workers would create a NEW class of poverty stricken, which would require the re-hiring of poverty workers, which would lessen etc etc etc for ever.

2009 characteristics of poor:
1) Only one flatscreen tv at home with full cable
2) stereo in car is worth more than car
3) a couple of pair of $500 sneakers
4) cell phone less than six months old
5) an full music library on an ipod
6) overweight, on foodstamps, yet eats out at the sizzler five times a week
7) has 2 or 3 five dollar starbucks mocha’s daily
8) refuses to get job because they are holding out for a management job like cousin Eddie from Nat’l Lampoon vacation
9) free or subsidized housing with unlimited a/c
10) a built-in victimization industry that blames poverty on society rather than sloth, or ones personal attitude.