Neopoverty

Poverty is a weird concept. In the US, it is used for all sorts of measures and indicators, census information and tax categories. But we rarely talk about what it *is.* It's extremely subjective and makes a lot of suppositions that I don't care for. For 2009, the official poverty threshold is $10,830 for a single-person household. That's about a full time job at $5.50/hour after taxes. So let's look at someone a little above that line, say, by 25%. $13,500 for a single household - a full time job at $7.00/hour. Anyone who has ever had a $7.00/hr job is probably laughing right now. Right now, the lowest cost of living in the US is in Oklahoma, where $.87 buys you a dollars worth, so let's start there. First, taxes... Let's say we're bringing home $6.50 an hour on our $7.00 - our earned $13,500 is already down almost $1000. $12,650 in hand, we need a place to live. One bedroom apartments in Oklahoma City rent for an average of about $600-650/mo. Yay, we found a cheap one for $550, or $6600 a year. That was already half our money, leaving us $6050, or $500/month.

$500 per month? Drive a crappy 1988 Oldsmobile? $90/mo for no-fault insurance, and another $50 in gas if you never really go anywhere and work near where you live. Have a car you're making payments on? Not in this scenario you don't! Internet, water, cell phone, electricity, gas: $50, $15, $60, $35, $20 - unless it's winter or summer. $320, good job, you still have $180 per month left for whatever you want - unless you have a credit card balance, student loans, health insurance, past medical bill, or enjoy eating food. Even if your daily menu was cereal in the morning, sandwich for lunch, and macaroni and cheese for dinner every night, you still have a monthly $80 grocery bill. Car problem? Not in an 88' Oldsmobile, dummy. Need a bed, couch, place to eat or any of that fancy pants stuff? Nope. See a movie, eat some Taco Bell, have a beer with your friends? No, maybe, and no (Taco Bell if you stick to the value menu).

That's 125% of the poverty line in the cheapest cost of living City in the US. But here's something else that bothers me.

You can own 40 acres in the hills, a nice four bedroom, two bathroom house with a full basement and root/wine cellar, set against the backdrop of that fruit orchard you planted near the edge of that pine tree line, just past the creek that has the great trout fishing in fall. A few acre personal use farm with a thriving and varied vegetable patch, a nice sized green house, a bee colony, some nut trees, wild ducks, wild berry bushes, a sizable solar array, a wind turbine, an aquifer well... and you trade your neighbors what you have for what you don't, selling just enough to pay your property taxes each year. The government considers that extreme poverty. Well, sign me up.

There's a life they want us to live that many of us can't afford, and there's all the things we actually need, which in no way factor into what we're supposed to have.

And of course, huge parts of the populations in southern and central Africa, South America, and southern Asia live off of less than $1 US everyday. $13,500 didn't work out for you? Try $30. Most "poor" people in America live like kings compared to the poor elsewhere.

I realize this post is all over the place, but I don't feel like fixing it. Besides, it's easily makes as much sense as the American perception and attitude towards poverty. All I know for sure after writing this is that I'm not a big fan of currency or capitalism, and that I want to own some acreage out west, maybe southern Oregon, near the mountains...