Are the poor better off now than they were 50 years ago?

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
21

In America, there are no poor people. There are people that are poorer than other people but there is nobody starving to death unless they just want to.

If one person has a billion dollars (George Soros) and another person has a few million dollars (Hillary Clinton) then the millionaire is poor compared to the billionaire. If someone has zero income but a free place to live and is provided with the means to feed and clothe themselves then they are poorer than a millionaire but are wealthy beyond belief for an amazon tribal member.

We have no poor people in America.

22

Maybe someone here can answer this for me. I’ve never been able to get a satisfactory one.

Why is income disparity a bad thing? It is commonly used as “proof” that things are getting worse for the lower- and middle-class in America – including right here. But I can’t honestly come up with a reason why it is inherently bad. I have a couple of ideas of why it might be considered bad, but none of them hold up to scrutiny.

First idea: more wealth for the wealthy means less for everyone else. This is demonstrably untrue. Economics is not a zero-sum game; if it was, economies could never grow. The super-wealthy might have a larger slice than before, but the pie is larger, too. And “wealth” is not an important measure anyway; the wealthiest person in the world from 200 years ago lived a life plagued with problems that no one faces today. What matters is what wealth can bring you, which goes to the second idea.

Second idea: it means the lives of the super-wealthy are improving when others’ are not. This can be argued any number of ways, but by any measure I think everyone’s situation has improved enormously:

  • Crime is down; lifespans are up. Warfare claims fewer lives today than at any point in history. You might not think it based on recent events, but our lives are far safer than they have ever been.
  • The availability and variety of food is higher than it has ever been. Whether people choose to take advantage of that is another story, but there is now year-round access to an astonishing variety of fruits and vegetables.
  • Medicine and dentistry have made tremendous strides over the last few decades. Many childhood scourges have been all but wiped out thanks to vaccines, for example – except in places where the idiocy of vaccine denial has allowed outbreaks to recur. Ironically, anti-vaxers are typically wealthy.
  • Cars are safer, less polluting, and more ubiquitous.
  • Deregulation of the phone industry led to an explosion of technology that only Trekkies would have dreamed of 40 years ago.
  • The Internet gives everyone access to a vast storehouse of knowledge and learning (several universities, for instance, put their lectures online for free), even if they, again, choose to use it to view cat pictures.
  • Tolerance is way beyond what it ever was. Gay marriage is now legal in more than half the states. Different races mix together much more freely than before – not as freely as they should, to be sure, but compared to 50 years ago? No contest. (And remember that in the 1920s, the KKK had millions of members.) My wife is a different race than I am, something commonplace enough that it doesn’t even merit a second thought now.

I just can’t see how life in the past could be considered better in any way. Meanwhile, increasing wealth brings diminishing returns for your quality of life. The super-wealthy already had access to, basically, everything. Doubling or tripling or quintupling their wealth doesn’t change that.

Third idea: increasing wealth disparity means the super-wealthy have more influence over politics. This might be a problem in theory, but I don’t think it is in practice. The super-wealthy have always had that influence; being even richer can’t really give them more. Plus, the Information Age has made it a lot harder for secret deals to remain secret, and has also made the consequences of getting caught a lot higher. The super-wealthy might actually have less influence than they did in the past.

Also, this assumes that the interests of the super-wealthy are somehow at odds with those of everyone else. A look at the actions of some of the super-rich – the Gates Foundation comes to mind – shows this isn’t always true. It might be true in some cases, but again, the Information Age has made it harder for the elite to be truly self-centered and heartless. Half a century ago, Frank Sinatra had poorly-kept-secret ties to organized crime; supposedly, Kennedy did as well Can you imagine any entertainer or public figure getting away with that now?

Fourth idea: I don’t actually have a fourth. If it exists, I’d like to hear it.

23

I’ll tell all of those people I see living in the streets that they have a place to live and thus aren’t poor and should stop whining.

If you think people always have something to eat and a place to live because they live in America, you need to get out more.

There are a few cities that deal with people who don’t have homes. In St Petersburg, you can be arrested for feeding the hungry. In San Jose, they take care of the homeless by bulldozing their belongings and telling them to move on. In Chicago, they’re taking away homeless people’s possession and leaving them with a single blanket which is another way of saying either move on or freeze.

I have had friends who don’t have enough to eat. I’d invite them over about 4 at my house to play a game or watch TV, and then …well since they’re over here already… why not stay for dinner? They didn’t want charity, but were willing to put up with this ruse for a good meal. They’re working poor. They get about 30 hours per week at minimum wage (their work doesn’t like to give more than that, or else they might have to pay benefits), and can’t get regular hours which makes taking on a second job a bit hard.

24

Income disparity, simply having more money than someone else, isn’t inherently a bad thing. If income were divorced from everything else, if it were just “I can buy a really nice car!” then it wouldn’t matter.

But what income represents, at least in the US, is health, freedom, and privileges. In some cases, you rights and your life themselves hinge on your wealth. This isn’t “I drive an Audi, you drive a Ford” territory. This is “I commit a crime and get pardoned, you commit a crime and get shot” territory.

We’re supposed to be a nation of equality, not of different rules for different classes. We never have been, but there are times when it looks better and times when it looks worse.

25

This is just laughable. Did you see the recent news that the Koch Brothers’ organizations now control more dollars than the entire Republican Party?

The ‘fourth’ possibility you missed is this: Severe income disparities are bad so long as people – even working people – are going without food or shelter while the super-rich purchase extravagant luxuries just to use up some of the excess dollars they have. It’s just morally obscene.
Powers &8^]

27

Re: the question, isn’t believing that things are getting better the opposite of cynicism? Unless he means that he is a really optimistic philosopher who acts like a dog.

So we are leaving the party back behind us, eh?

28

Unless you have data about how there are more people struggling to keep clothes on their back in the US in 2014 than in the US in 1964, this comment is irrelevant to the topic.

The bottom quintile is often used as a metric for the poor in the US. By and large, most in this category do not lack shelter or clothes or food. This is not a question of if being in the bottom quintile is all skittles and beer(it isn’t), it’s a question of whether being in the bottom quintile in 2014 is better than being in the bottom quintile in 1964. In other words, in which time period would you prefer to live?

For quality of life, there is no question that 2014 is better than 1964 at all levels of income. It is easy to document material benefits as shown previously, but there are numerous other examples from basic medical care (most ulcers in 2014 are curable at modest cost even w/o insurance) to civil rights (how many black members of Congress were there in 1964? Zero. Today even South Carolina–the first state of the Confederacy–has a black Congressman, a black Senator, and a minority governor).

This isn’t a discussion about poverty or wealth gaps, it is a question of if life is getting better for the poor over time. Where is the evidence that it is worse for the poor now than 50 years ago?

29

[quote=“KentofKent, post:28, topic:706393”]

And yet some of us see this as question begging.

30

[quote=“jsgoddess, post:29, topic:706393”]

“Begging the Question is a fallacy in which the premises include the claim that the conclusion is true or (directly or indirectly) assume that the conclusion is true.”

I don’t see this as an instance of begging the question. ‘Income inequality,’ the current donation crisis for avowed progressives, is not even relevant to the question that asks in absolute terms if the bottom quintile of humans are better off now or fifty years ago. One can argue how to define ‘bottom quintile’ or if that represents ‘the poor’; I’m not sure that income is even a good measure, but rather a purely ‘western’ measure.

31

This was patently obvious when I lived in a house in one of the older neighborhoods in my city. It was plain that the streets themselves were designed with a “one car per house” philosophy. By the 2000s, it was hard for two cars to pass each other in opposite directions because of the parked cars lining both sides of the street narrowing the street down to, effectively, one lane.

32

It’s not relevant for you, because you have decided it’s not relevant. Telling me something is not relevant to me is a wee bit presumptuous, don’t you think?

33

No, not when you make a silly assertion about how objective measurements are begging the question.

Regards,
Shodan

34

And we are miserable today because we don’t have flying cars and holographic virtual reality TV.
I lived back then. No one missed computers or HD TV. No one missed microwaves.
No one missed DVDs. There were plenty of movies on the non-network channels in NY, and you didn’t have to pay a monthly fee to see them.

Life expectancy has improved. However back then few people went bankrupt paying for medical care.
One thing we have to day we didn’t have then is job insecurity. My uncle worked as an engineer for defense contractors, and often got laid off when contracts terminated (par for the course) but that was considered exceptional. Now getting laid off is pretty standard even during relatively good times. We had lifetime employment at AT&T and IBM - no such thing now.

The actual poor are a bit better off today because of social safety net things like food stamps - exactly the things that a lot of people making the “there are no poor because they have TVs” argument hate.

BTW we didn’t have AC in 1960, and we were far from poor.

35

I’d say the real problem today is not only the disparity but that those on the bottom (which is getting bigger) are not living better but mostly are living worse with wages that are finally starting to budge 6 years after the recession. Somewhat over 90% of income growth has gone to the top. There was a lot of income inequality during the tech bubble also, but unemployment was way down and wages were improving for all.

36

We- everyone reading this have lived in the best time there ever was or will ever be.

37

That depends on who and where you are.

38

hi, first post.I guess im considered the poorest of the poor or maybe not.Homeless people are much poorer then me and some working people too.

I make $721.00(not poverty) (jan 1 2015 734.00) in SSI per month.I get around 63.00 in food stamps and im on section 8 housing, my healthcare is also free(free isnt poverty) i dont pay 1 penny for anything and i would imagine tax payers paid(not poverty) over $100,000+ for my medical problems over the past 3 years.i am disabled.sect 8 pay more than 50% of my rent so i only pay 200.00 or less for rent(thats not poverty)…and my healthcare is great must be worth $2000 a month since everything is free ? my foodstamps dont pay for all my food need but i have money left over for that…im able to save quite a bit of money thru out the year and buys things i need to make life comfortable.im far from being poor and even farther from living in poverty,my life is quite good

jo

39

nm

40

Long story short, income disparity completely disrupts the whole concept of cooperation, which is how humans have survived for pretty much our entire history.

We evolved as social animals which reserve a large part of our brains for remembering who people are, who has helped us in the past, who is likely to help us in the future, and who we owe favors to. Historically, wealth meant being surrounded by neighbors and family members who can count on you when they need it and you can count on them. The way you earned wealth was by being a team player, pulling your weight, doing your share of the work, being nice to people, and being willing to do favors for people who ask.

Then we started using money as an intermediate step. Instead of trading favors for favors, you get money for a favor and then at some later date you expect to trade in that money to get favors. At first this seems harmless until you realize that it #1 money can accumulate and be given away (but favors fade and they are non-transferable) and #2 it’s possible to get money by being a good liar (or a good thief). Consider a sleazy shepherd who can simultaneously convince one person that a sheep is worth 3 coins and another person that the same sheep is worth 5 coins. If that shepherd is a slick enough liar, he can accumulate such a huge pile of coins that his children never have to work a day in their lives.

Think just for a second about how perverted that is. Your ability to survive no longer depends on you learning how to cooperate with your neighbors or being willing to do your share of the work. You don’t even need to be nice to people. All you need is to learn how to be a great liar, or (even better) be lucky enough to be born the child of a great liar.

Whatever we’re gaining from income disparity better be really great.

41

So I am less likely to cooperate with someone if he has more money than I do? I don’t see why that should be the case.

Do you have data on how much more common cheating and sharp dealing are in societies that use money vs. societies that use barter?

IOW I am able to trade you one sheep for three chickens, instead of someone else who will trade for five chickens. In what way is this prevented if we use chickens instead of money?

I don’t see the connection between this and income disparity.

If you are claiming that income disparity is so destructive, why is the material position of the poor so much better than it was fifty years ago? According to your ideas they should be worse off - instead they are better by practically any measure you name.

I do not see that any of the bad effects you claim is due to income disparity, or that their frequency is affected by such a disparity.

Regards,
Shodan