# Are poor Americans more helpless than they used to be? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 10, 2014, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-poor-americans-more-helpless-than-they-used-to-be/695226 "2014-08-10T10:51:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-poor-americans-more-helpless-than-they-used-to-be/695226/21 "2014-08-11T16:05:30Z")
The point is, the desperately poor have to concentrate their efforts towards actual rather than theoretical survival. I suspect a lot of the people who currently spend their efforts on “working the system” probably could, if necessary, acquire other survival skills if needed. Gardening, after all, isn’t rocket science and neither is canning food or chopping firewood. I think we should be cautious we don’t mistake “haven’t had a reason/motivation to learn skill X” for “unable to learn skill X”. But yes, there is a sub-set of people who in the old days would have simply died without a social safety net. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-poor-americans-more-helpless-than-they-used-to-be/695226/22 "2014-08-11T17:25:37Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I’m not sure those comparisons are apt. What I’m going for is: if an ultra-libertarian, Ayn Rand type government were somehow swept into power (which I hope and expect will never happen), cutting off all government aid programs, I’m saying that most of the poor nowadays would be unable to deal with it. Whereas 80 or 100 years ago, a much higher percentage could eke out an existence without government aid. This is something else. Today the government provides the safety net. 80-100 years ago your family, your neighbors and your church provided the safety net. Have you ever thought about the millions of people currently living in nursing homes? 80-100 years ago almost no one lived in a nursing home; instead the elderly disabled lived with their kids or other relatives. ---
**Author:** ![Crotalus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crotalus/32/41_2.png) [@Crotalus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crotalus)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-poor-americans-more-helpless-than-they-used-to-be/695226/23 "2014-08-11T18:09:16Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > I’m just getting started. Spare us your made up facts and stop there. The part about chickens has already been mentioned, and I will second that. The city I live in allows raising chickens within the city limits. It also has an extensive bus system for its 20,000 residents. I know this is IMHO, but you are presenting bullshit as facts. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-poor-americans-more-helpless-than-they-used-to-be/695226/24 "2014-08-11T19:40:46Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > People still do collect scrap metal and the like - see it all the time in my area and I’ve done it myself. However, selling such now requires the buyer to record information on the seller in my state - if for some reason you don’t have ID you will be turned away (unless you’re dealing with the unscrupulous, of course, always a possibility). Also, not terribly lucrative, the labor works out to less than minimum wage. These ID laws were implemented to discourage scrap metal theives, which were becoming a problem in many areas. Around here, thieves were stripping copper wires & piping out unoccupied buildings, and stripping aluminum siding off of houses (not necessarily abandoned houses, either !!!) For the same reason, in my state it is illegal for a scrap metal dealer to pay cash. They must pay by check. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Lowry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Sam\_Lowry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Lowry)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-poor-americans-more-helpless-than-they-used-to-be/695226/25 "2014-08-12T13:30:18Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > The point is, the desperately poor have to concentrate their efforts towards actual rather than theoretical survival. I suspect a lot of the people who currently spend their efforts on “working the system” probably could, if necessary, acquire other survival skills if needed. Gardening, after all, isn’t rocket science and neither is canning food or chopping firewood. I think we should be cautious we don’t mistake “haven’t had a reason/motivation to learn skill X” for “unable to learn skill X”. I agree. If necessary, some people would learn to garden, while some other people wouldn’t learn, or wouldn’t be able to do it, but could maybe barter based on other things they’re able to do or were able to teach themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-poor-americans-more-helpless-than-they-used-to-be/695226/26 "2014-08-12T14:35:55Z")
> [@Crotalus](#): > > Spare us your made up facts and stop there. The part about chickens has already been mentioned, and I will second that. Raise chickens, where? If you aren’t living in a rural area, and don’t have enough money to buy a $3 carton of eggs every week, what are the chances you own/rent enough open land to raise chickens? Same thing with gardening. Gardens take land and sun, both of which are somewhat scarce in the city. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-poor-americans-more-helpless-than-they-used-to-be/695226/27 "2014-08-12T14:57:48Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > Raise chickens, where? If you aren’t living in a rural area, and don’t have enough money to buy a $3 carton of eggs every week, what are the chances you own/rent enough open land to raise chickens? > > Same thing with gardening. Gardens take land and sun, both of which are somewhat scarce in the city. Chances are if you live in the city, the soil isn’t safe to plant directly into because of high lead levels. Many a community garden has been disallowed for this reason. Good luck carting bags of gardening soil on a bus. ---
**Author:** ![Crotalus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crotalus/32/41_2.png) [@Crotalus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crotalus)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-poor-americans-more-helpless-than-they-used-to-be/695226/28 "2014-08-12T15:00:38Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > Raise chickens, where? If you aren’t living in a rural area, and don’t have enough money to buy a $3 carton of eggs every week, what are the chances you own/rent enough open land to raise chickens? > > Same thing with gardening. Gardens take land and sun, both of which are somewhat scarce in the city. In my city, people raise chickens on the same lot their house sits on, typically a 50 by 150 foot lot. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-poor-americans-more-helpless-than-they-used-to-be/695226/29 "2014-08-12T15:08:46Z")
> [@Crotalus](#): > > In my city, people raise chickens on the same lot their house sits on, typically a 50 by 150 foot lot. That’s the size of the lot my house is on. Note, I have enough money to own/rent a detached house on a modestly sized lot. If I got so poor that I couldn’t afford a carton of eggs, I would think that finding a cheaper place to live (one without a nice backyard) is going to help me a lot more than raising chickens. If you’re in a rural area, places to live with land are already the really cheap option, and you’re probably gardening and raising chickens. ---
**Author:** ![Crotalus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crotalus/32/41_2.png) [@Crotalus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crotalus)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-poor-americans-more-helpless-than-they-used-to-be/695226/30 "2014-08-12T15:13:09Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > That’s the size of the lot my house is on. Note, I have enough money to own/rent a detached house on a modestly sized lot. > > If I got so poor that I couldn’t afford a carton of eggs, I would think that finding a cheaper place to live (one without a nice backyard) is going to help me a lot more than raising chickens. > > If you’re in a rural area, places to live with land are already the really cheap option, and you’re probably gardening and raising chickens. I think you are viewing the chicken/egg thing differently than the people who are raising chickens where I live (southern Ohio). They are not raising chickens to avoid having to pay for a dozen eggs, they are raising chickens to sell eggs, and eat a few themselves. ---
**Author:** ![mage-girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cc9497/32.png) [@mage-girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mage-girl)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-poor-americans-more-helpless-than-they-used-to-be/695226/31 "2014-08-13T00:58:27Z")
Poor people in cities don’t generally own houses, they rent apartments. They may not even have a yard. Don’t get started on how owning is a better deal than renting; if you don’t have a down payment, or good credit, you’re not going to be able to buy a house. I live in a nice-ish apartment building (1920s-era) in a somewhat-sketchy neighborhood. We have approximately 3 feet by 5 feet of outside space - a balcony. That is no place to keep a chicken or worthwhile garden. Heck, we can barely manage a couple of tomato plants! Many places in our neighborhood have zero outside space. We have a rooming house less than a half-block away, as well as studio apartments up and down the street. At these places, you’re lucky to have a window that looks out on something other than a wall. We have a local church who cares for a community garden, and they bring in produce to give away at their weekly food pantry. That is pretty cool they can do that; however, they are an organization. An individual would have a much tougher time A) getting the land to garden and B) maintaining and securing it so that it can be harvested. As for people being too dependent on the government: I’m not sure what can be done about that. My mom has been disabled since 2006 due to multiple strokes. Her whole left side is unreliable, she has difficulty walking, and is incontinent. In addition, she has some form of diminished capacity - she gets very impatient, forgets things, dislikes people, cries easily, etc. I am her daughter, and live with her, and even I find her difficult at times. Where, exactly, would someone like her work? I really don’t know. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-poor-americans-more-helpless-than-they-used-to-be/695226/32 "2014-08-13T02:56:53Z")
> [@AnaMen](#): > > It’s not just poor people–Americans get more helpless and dumb every year. Every task is supposed to be done by a hired specialist or professional. In the past, people prided themselves in being capable and having a wide range of skills. Now people have no shame in their incompetence and don’t think they should know anything outside of their own specialty. I don’t think that’s the case at all, or at least for a lot of people anyway. For example, I _can_ do and have done all that crap **Dangerosa** mentions- tiling bathrooms, building fences and shacks, gardening, baking bread, working on small and large engines (just about everything shy of a car engine rebuild, and that only because I don’t have the tools). I can mow my yard, trim my trees and re-shingle my roof if I had to. But I sub almost all of it out because I don’t want to do it. I don’t enjoy it, and I’d rather trade money for the time to do what I want to do, rather than spend my next half-dozen weekends re-doing a bathroom in my house, or risking getting injured cutting limbs out of trees and running a chainsaw. No shame in that, as far as I know. Now if I had to be entirely reliant on others to do all those things, I think it might make me uncomfortable, but not necessarily ashamed. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-poor-americans-more-helpless-than-they-used-to-be/695226/33 "2014-08-13T03:59:04Z")
I think it’s unforgivably naive to think the poor today live worse lives than at any other time in history. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-poor-americans-more-helpless-than-they-used-to-be/695226/34 "2014-08-13T07:55:36Z")
Who are you addressing that to, **Stringbean**? I hope it’s not at me, because I certainly don’t think the poor today live worse lives than in the past. If you live in the industrialized world, it’s quite plainly the _best_ time in history to be poor. And a few years from now will be better yet, and so on. ---
**Author:** ![Kaio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c68b51/32.png) [@Kaio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaio)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2014, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-poor-americans-more-helpless-than-they-used-to-be/695226/35 "2014-08-14T16:54:53Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I’m not talking about the working poor, or those who technically qualify as being under the federal poverty line. In my OP (even before my OP, in the other thread", I referred to “\*desperately \*poor people”. The 20 million or so people described in [this article.](http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/nov/03/us-poverty-poorest) Just to calibrate the measurements here, the official US poverty line is REALLY low. The formula for SNAP, for example, was established in the 50s and assumed one stay-at-home parent (well, assumed a _housewife_) who was frugal in buying groceries and cooked everything from scratch. These days that’s not a very accurate assumption to make – we’ve got single-parent families, families where both parents have to work, and that makes for little time and energy for cooking everything from scratch. Stay-at-home-parents are a comfortable middle-class luxury these days, not something a poor family can afford. SNAP also hasn’t kept up with rising food costs. I have lived on an income that was 130% of the poverty line, and I was lucky I had savings (and generous family) because that’s how I paid the rent. I would have been homeless/starving/utilities cut off otherwise. Anyone actually AT the poverty line – nevermind BELOW it! – would be pretty “desperately poor” in my book. ---
**Author:** ![Kaio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c68b51/32.png) [@Kaio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaio)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2014, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-poor-americans-more-helpless-than-they-used-to-be/695226/36 "2014-08-14T17:05:39Z")
> [@Crotalus](#): > > In my city, people raise chickens on the same lot their house sits on, typically a 50 by 150 foot lot. Most poor people in a city aren’t going to be living in a house with a lot, however. They’ll live in some sort of multi-unit housing, with _maybe_ a shared yard/courtyard. I have idly looked at chicken raising in Chicago, and have come across “how-to” pages which suggest keeping the chicken as an indoor pet is possible, but I’m not sure how practical that would be in a small apartment filled with family/kids. Also… chicken poop. Indoors. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2014, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-poor-americans-more-helpless-than-they-used-to-be/695226/37 "2014-08-14T22:50:21Z")
As late as the Depression, the “hobo” life was still viable - day labor would provide enough food for the next week; if no day labor, a widow who needed a fence fixed and had her husband’s tools and materials would be happy to provide a meal in exchange for an hour or two of work. Try that now. We have become “me against the world” and “I’ve got mine, the hell with you jack”. This is not progress. St. Louis is demonstrating the future. ---
**Author:** ![Flywheel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2014, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-poor-americans-more-helpless-than-they-used-to-be/695226/38 "2014-08-14T23:24:12Z")
> [@Kaio](#): > > I have idly looked at chicken raising in Chicago, and have come across “how-to” pages which suggest keeping the chicken as an indoor pet is possible, but I’m not sure how practical that would be in a small apartment filled with family/kids. Also… chicken poop. Indoors. 😛 [“It could always be worse…”](https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=464644233600414&id=125862557478585) ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2014, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-poor-americans-more-helpless-than-they-used-to-be/695226/39 "2014-08-15T01:14:18Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > We have become “me against the world” and “I’ve got mine, the hell with you jack”. > > This is not progress. > > St. Louis is demonstrating the future. We have a much better social safety net now, so I’m not sure how that ties in with “I’ve got mine, the hell with you jack”. And what do you mean about St. Louis demonstrating the future? I’m aware of the conflict in Ferguson, I’m just not clear on what you are getting at. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2014, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-poor-americans-more-helpless-than-they-used-to-be/695226/40 "2014-08-15T03:50:44Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > We have a much better social safety net now, so I’m not sure how that ties in with “I’ve got mine, the hell with you jack”. We have a safety net? Where? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-poor-americans-more-helpless-than-they-used-to-be/695226.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-poor-americans-more-helpless-than-they-used-to-be/695226.md?page=3)