From NRO
Data from the Department of Energy and other agencies show that the average poor family, as defined by Census officials:
● Lives in a home that is in good repair, not crowded, and equipped with air conditioning, clothes washer and dryer, and cable or satellite TV service.
● Prepares meals in a kitchen with a refrigerator, coffee maker and microwave as well as oven and stove.
● Enjoys two color TVs, a DVD player, VCR and — if children are there — an Xbox, PlayStation, or other video game system.
● Had enough money in the past year to meet essential needs, including adequate food and medical care.
Maybe it’s time to become a democrat. Why bother working?
TOBACCO ROAD (1941), john Ford Director, Gene Tierney, actress
Shiftless Jeeter Lester and his family of hillbilly stereotypes live in a rural backwater where their ancestors were once wealthy planters. Their slapstick existence is threatened by a bank’s plans to take over the land for more profitable farming; subplots involve the affairs and marriages of son Dude and daughter Ellie May.
Very amusing movie that portrays best how people got along with much-much less. Contrast that with an abundently stocked Publix in So Florida where, mid afternoon, I observed a skinny balloons blond, probably stripper/prostitute, purchase a dozen gallons of bottled water using food stamps.
Many of the people who are ”upside-down” on their mortgages have stopped making payments on them and live an extravagant lifestyle.
They have learned that our nation’s ”safety net” is now a solid foundation, below which Obama will not allow anyone to fall.
So, they still work, but they go rent-free to enjoy the same level of lavishness as their ”poor” neighbors who teach them not to put up with less than everything they want.
Somebody was on C-SPAN this AM as a guest and he claimed that it is now 52% of all American households that pay no taxes to the federal government.
I’d question whether a large % of the poor live in uncrowded conditions.
75% don’t have dishwashers? You may be a redneck if “loading the dishwasher” means getting your wife drunk.lol
@rich wheeler:
I last rented in the 1980’s.
My last landlords were a Vietnamese family.
They had been ”boat people.”
When they got to Long Beach all 14 of their family moved into a two bedroom apartment in the building they later bought.
No welfare for them.
They scrounged.
Some did laundry for a hospital.
Some recycled glass and metal.
Some did housecleaning.
Some babysat.
One did car repair.
Eventually they pooled their money and bought the 17 unit apartment building.
I really doubt they owned a dishwasher.
After phosphates were removed from dishwasher soaps a lot of people I know who have one, hardly ever use it anymore.
If you have good health and a family that loves you, you are rich beyond any measure.