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 Peter Wiggin wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
A better question would be to ask, why are there poor people?

Because in ANY society there are haves and have nots. Even if you remove all material possessions, currency, and types of wealth some people are left with more "human capital" in the form of their mental or physical ability.

Read Edmund Burke's commentary on the "leveling of society" if you'd like to ponder the social aspects of what a truly equalized mass society actually brings about.

If nothing else, I know quite a few poor people who are poor because they make bad choices. Heck, my roommate had a solid job that paid well over minimum wage with plenty of hours. Not enough to be rich, but enough that he should have been able to build up decent saving, put money towards college or a trade school or something, etc. Instead, he blows all his money on video games, oversized TV and speakers, a motorcycle, cosplay costumes, this, that, there's always something he's wasting money on. Without knowing every detail of his bank account, I can think of at least ~$4000 of unnecessary expenses over the last 6 months, and I'm certain there's more there. It's almost silly, how terrible he is with money. He's been working a few years, by now he should have plenty of savings to be able to look around for a better job. Instead, he has trouble making rent whenever life throws him a curveball.

 DarkLink wrote:

 Peter Wiggin wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
A better question would be to ask, why are there poor people?

Because in ANY society there are haves and have nots. Even if you remove all material possessions, currency, and types of wealth some people are left with more "human capital" in the form of their mental or physical ability.

Read Edmund Burke's commentary on the "leveling of society" if you'd like to ponder the social aspects of what a truly equalized mass society actually brings about.

If nothing else, I know quite a few poor people who are poor because they make bad choices. Heck, my roommate had a solid job that paid well over minimum wage with plenty of hours. Not enough to be rich, but enough that he should have been able to build up decent saving, put money towards college or a trade school or something, etc. Instead, he blows all his money on video games, oversized TV and speakers, a motorcycle, cosplay costumes, this, that, there's always something he's wasting money on. Without knowing every detail of his bank account, I can think of at least ~$4000 of unnecessary expenses over the last 6 months, and I'm certain there's more there. It's almost silly, how terrible he is with money. He's been working a few years, by now he should have plenty of savings to be able to look around for a better job. Instead, he has trouble making rent whenever life throws him a curveball.

Well, yeah, that's part of it. People who come from generational poverty generally don't have experience with such concepts as long-term planning or possess budgeting skills. They generally live in the "now" and instant gratification, if they have the ability/resources to make it happen, takes precedent. All of this combined creates a cycle of debt that is unfortunately supported by society as a whole with predatory lending through such places as paycheck loan companies and organizations that give out "free" phones, weekly rental centers, etc. These people wind up paying 3x the MSRP or more on what most people consider to be fairly standard household items like sofas or beds because they lack credit to "put it on a card", the income to buy it outright or the training/experience to budget for it and save.

 dogma wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

You can also save a lot of money on poultry by buying whole birds, which are usually between $1-2 a pound, and butchering them yourself. Buying cuts individually drives the prices way up. If you only want to eat white meat, buying a whole bird, cutting off the breasts and throwing the rest away is cheaper than buying breasts individually.

Yeah, that's not true. A small, whole chicken usually comes in at around 2.5 pounds. If we assume that chicken costs 1.5 USD per pound, then its total cost will be 3.75 USD. Chicken breast (whether boneless or bone-in) is usually about 3.5 USD per pound. If you are throwing away everything but the breast meat from our example whole chicken you are paying more in total and getting significantly less than a pound of breast meat, meaning your effective cost per pound is going to be higher than 3.5 USD per pound.

Wherever you are has some tiny chickens. Most chickens I see are in the 3.5-4 pound range. And breast meat is $4ish a pound minimum.

So yes, you actually do save money by butchering it yourself. Maybe your area has some weird dynamics to make it not true.

That is a problem I am facing. Until recently I ate out alot. like 3-4 times a week.
Now, not so much. Im hoping living in a place that is like a 30 minute walk from the nearest resturant or 30min bus ride to a cheap one, forces me to learn that it aint hard to actually cook.

 Grey Templar wrote:

Wherever you are has some tiny chickens. Most chickens I see are in the 3.5-4 pound range. And breast meat is $4ish a pound minimum.

My local supermarkets run chicken breast at around 4.99/lb minimum. The local butcher shop I go to runs it at 4.79/lb. The same thing is true of ground beef, steaks any pretty much every sort of animal musculature that is consumed by humans on a regular basis.


As for "what is poverty", based on where I'm at, you'd be dead in six months on the kind of numbers in the OP. Cost of Living is extremely high in WA state. Utilities here are every other month, but averaged out, it's probably about 400, and we're a fairly typical family of 4. Simply "not driving", or using public transport isn't really an option because the Transit company is notoriously never on schedule. Not to mention, there are almost no lines that connect, so if your home isn't on the same line, or doesn't meet with a line that does with your work, you're SOL. Library hours are very short, so if you don't have your own internet, that's also not practical for the kind of hours a "typical" working poor person has.

Of course, if these idiot kids think you can simply not spend money on clothes... when you have kids in the house. Well, frankly if I were the professor I'd fail them all for not thinking

My guess is they they where thinking if someone was "Suddenly Poor" they could live off the clothes they have.

Thats really the main problem with trying to set any poverty benchmark. It is entirely dependent on the specific areas, you can't have any one or even multiple levels. You have to have hundreds of poverty levels to even begin to cover the US.

This is also why "living wage" falls flat on its face, you cannot define it.

 LordofHats wrote:
Do we really need to quibble of the exacting price of chicken (which will no doubt vary by location?).

The larger point is that many of the cost saving measures which people propose are misguided.

 Grey Templar wrote:

This is also why "living wage" falls flat on its face, you cannot define it.

While you can't define a set dollar amount for the whole country, I believe that you can create a sort of "laundry list" of items to include


@hotsauce, as a parent, I can tell you flat out that kids grow ridiculously fast. Even buying clothes "too big" for them before school, by the time the school year is out, the younger ones often can barely squeeze into them.

 Grey Templar wrote:

Wherever you are has some tiny chickens. Most chickens I see are in the 3.5-4 pound range. And breast meat is $4ish a pound minimum.

So yes, you actually do save money by butchering it yourself. Maybe your area has some weird dynamics to make it not true.

Your math still doesn't work out. At 1.5 USD per pound a 3.5 pound whole chicken will cost 5.25 USD, even if it yields a pound of breast meat (and it probably won't) it is still cheaper to pay 4 USD for a pound of breast meat if that is all you want. Hell, it would still be cheaper to pay 5 USD for a pound of breast meat.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 dogma wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

You can also save a lot of money on poultry by buying whole birds, which are usually between $1-2 a pound, and butchering them yourself. Buying cuts individually drives the prices way up. If you only want to eat white meat, buying a whole bird, cutting off the breasts and throwing the rest away is cheaper than buying breasts individually.

Yeah, that's not true. A small, whole chicken usually comes in at around 2.5 pounds. If we assume that chicken costs 1.5 USD per pound, then its total cost will be 3.75 USD. Chicken breast (whether boneless or bone-in) is usually about 3.5 USD per pound. If you are throwing away everything but the breast meat from our example whole chicken you are paying more in total and getting significantly less than a pound of breast meat, meaning your effective cost per pound is going to be higher than 3.5 USD per pound.

Wherever you are has some tiny chickens. Most chickens I see are in the 3.5-4 pound range. And breast meat is $4ish a pound minimum.

So yes, you actually do save money by butchering it yourself. Maybe your area has some weird dynamics to make it not true.

2.5lbs chickens are normal and are a standard size across the US, and may be called Broilers, Fryers or "Broiler/Fryers". 3.5-4lb chickens are Roasters. Their names denote their intended usages and both are normal mass production products to be found anywhere:

http://www.thekitchn.com/whats-the-difference-between-broiler-fryer-roaster-and-other-types-of-chickens-ingredient-intelligence-47323

 LordofHats wrote:
At the end of the day, I think it patently obvious that a $250 budget for feeding a family of 4 for 31 days (and expecting not to run into health issues sooner rather than later) is beyond absurd

Oh, most assuredly. And God help you if one of those people earns a living doing something physically demanding. Malnutrition is a bad thing under the best of circumstances, but add in the load of, say, a construction worker and you're basically just asking for work related injuries.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

This is also why "living wage" falls flat on its face, you cannot define it.

While you can't define a set dollar amount for the whole country, I believe that you can create a sort of "laundry list" of items to include


@hotsauce, as a parent, I can tell you flat out that kids grow ridiculously fast. Even buying clothes "too big" for them before school, by the time the school year is out, the younger ones often can barely squeeze into them.

Oh Agree. I honestly believe that they where not saying you could go without clothe, I be they where thinking things like "You dont need to go clothes shopping anymore, you can just wear the ones you have.

 dogma wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

Wherever you are has some tiny chickens. Most chickens I see are in the 3.5-4 pound range. And breast meat is $4ish a pound minimum.

So yes, you actually do save money by butchering it yourself. Maybe your area has some weird dynamics to make it not true.

Your math still doesn't work out. At 1.5 USD per pound a 3.5 pound whole chicken will cost 5.25 USD, even if it yields a pound of breast meat (and it probably won't) it is still cheaper to pay 4 USD for a pound of breast meat if that is all you want. Hell, it would still be cheaper to pay 5 USD for a pound of breast meat.

Ok, I was exaggerating a little. Its still way cheaper to buy a whole bird and butcher it for its parts than buy the parts individually. You'll stretch your $ way farther was my main point.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 dogma wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

Wherever you are has some tiny chickens. Most chickens I see are in the 3.5-4 pound range. And breast meat is $4ish a pound minimum.

So yes, you actually do save money by butchering it yourself. Maybe your area has some weird dynamics to make it not true.

Your math still doesn't work out. At 1.5 USD per pound a 3.5 pound whole chicken will cost 5.25 USD, even if it yields a pound of breast meat (and it probably won't) it is still cheaper to pay 4 USD for a pound of breast meat if that is all you want. Hell, it would still be cheaper to pay 5 USD for a pound of breast meat.

Ok, I was exaggerating a little. Its still way cheaper to buy a whole bird and butcher it for its parts than buy the parts individually. You'll stretch your $ way farther was my main point.

This is actually 100% untrue. Because of the high cost of breast meat, the value of breast meat is included in the cost of whole birds. Dark Meat, particularly thighs has a lower price per pound than whole birds in most markets. This is because even including the labor to cut off the thighs, they're still the lowest value part of the bird. The wings, breasts and to lesser extent drumsticks are worth more than the cost the store puts into butchering the birds. The cheapest chicken to be had is bone-in, skin-on thighs.

Thighs are only so cheap because they're viewed almost as a byproduct. You saying the value of the breast is included in the whole bird is a gross oversimplification. Breast meat has such a high price because its so labor intensive to separate, and only done because customers want it and are willing to pay that high price. Its actually high enough to where breasts in the US are removed from the bird by hand, one of the few areas where automation is less efficient than manual labor(because machines miss enough breast meat to make them less profitable than human labor which can remove more meat).

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

This is also why "living wage" falls flat on its face, you cannot define it.

While you can't define a set dollar amount for the whole country, I believe that you can create a sort of "laundry list" of items to include


@hotsauce, as a parent, I can tell you flat out that kids grow ridiculously fast. Even buying clothes "too big" for them before school, by the time the school year is out, the younger ones often can barely squeeze into them.

You'll find that the Census Bureau does a decent job of identify both "poverty" and levels of poverty. Every year, data collected is compiled into the SAIPE report (Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates); they even consider multiple definitions of poverty when compiling the report. The US Dept of Education uses this data to help determine how much federal education funding school districts around the country (of a certain size or bigger) are eligible to receive.

http://www.census.gov/did/www/saipe/index.html

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

Oh Agree. I honestly believe that they where not saying you could go without clothe, I be they where thinking things like "You dont need to go clothes shopping anymore, you can just wear the ones you have.

What I'm saying though, is that line of reasoning simply does not work with children. Children do this pesky thing called growing and they very quickly attain a size where you pretty much are forced to buy them new clothes. Sure, the adults in the household will be wearing clothing till it wears out, but until the kids reach "adult size" they are going to wear out and outgrow clothing. This necessitates replacement.

If you are the OPs "family of 4" you could save a bit of scratch, if your kids are the same sex/gender, OR you buy clothing that is decidedly neutral and pass old clothing on to the younger sibling.

 sebster wrote:

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:
One thing about students is that they tend to have seriously degenerate lifestyles. Everything about them is pathological. Drug use, loud partying, lack of proper nutrition, lack of proper sleep, nestling together like rats.
They believe that everyone should wallow in pathology like them.

Not that you're one to generalise or anything.

I said, tend to do, not all do. Maybe it's different where you live, but here since the start of high school, drug use is rampant. Almost all students and teachers engage in heavy drinking during school trips (like in 95%). Which is why I stopped going on them and always protest if they try to put mandatory stuff like exams on school trips.
They plan drinking before trips and then come from trips talking about their excesses and how they drank with their professors. Socialising also tends to be drug-centred, sometimes with alcohol, sometimes with illegal drugs. The default mode of meeting is meeting with alcohol.

Same thing continues on emigration, with people nestling, many people in one room and taking drugs after work. I recently talked with a friend who returned from UK and he talked about how everyone where he lived and worked were almost all the time on drugs.
Other people talked about constant drinking.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Thats really the main problem with trying to set any poverty benchmark. It is entirely dependent on the specific areas, you can't have any one or even multiple levels. You have to have hundreds of poverty levels to even begin to cover the US.

This is also why "living wage" falls flat on its face, you cannot define it.

Not to mention that different people have different nutritional needs. I'm 1,94m tall and my caloric requirements are 3400kcal for fairly sedentary lifestyle (14 hours sitting, 2 hours of slow walk and 8 hours of sleep). Average recommendation for men is 2,000 to 2,600kcal a day for such lifestyle. So, my food expenses are going to be much higher than for average person, basing on caloric requirements alone.

 cincydooley wrote:
Well that was a nice load of vitriolic nonsense.

Congrats on that.

It's not nonsense. Drinking and illegal drug use is a norm among teens and alcohol causes brain damage in developing brains. Most of people are nothing to speak of intellectually or morally as kids. Adding drugs only makes things worse when they grow up.

 dogma wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
At the end of the day, I think it patently obvious that a $250 budget for feeding a family of 4 for 31 days (and expecting not to run into health issues sooner rather than later) is beyond absurd

Oh, most assuredly. And God help you if one of those people earns a living doing something physically demanding. Malnutrition is a bad thing under the best of circumstances, but add in the load of, say, a construction worker and you're basically just asking for work related injuries.

Exactly. That's something that powers that be and their servants don't want to understand or pretend to not understand.

 agnosto wrote:
Well, yeah, that's part of it. People who come from generational poverty generally don't have experience with such concepts as long-term planning or possess budgeting skills. They generally live in the "now" and instant gratification, if they have the ability/resources to make it happen, takes precedent. All of this combined creates a cycle of debt that is unfortunately supported by society as a whole with predatory lending through such places as paycheck loan companies and organizations that give out "free" phones, weekly rental centers, etc. These people wind up paying 3x the MSRP or more on what most people consider to be fairly standard household items like sofas or beds because they lack credit to "put it on a card", the income to buy it outright or the training/experience to budget for it and save.

Yeah, sadly, there's plenty of industries that are preying on people from poor backgrounds and their ignorance. I think that it should be taught about at school (budgeting, the tricks that these industries use to get people's money, etc.).
And it's bad for all of us because many people who otherwise would end up in middle class and our potential customers end up as poor people in endless debt.
I come from very poor background (my mother used to be an architect and the whole architecture market in Poland collapsed during the crisis of 90s. She spent 4 years unemployed until she got a unemployment office funded real estate appraisal course and got a cheap credit for starting a company).
When my mother's company prospered we'd live month to month despite that she earned way above median wage.
When market situation worsened (real estate appraiser trade union leadership was making money on damaging the market - first trying to monopolize market using contacts within local governments, then training masses of real estate appraisers, now that it's harder to get exclusive contracts due to anti-corruption laws, they basically take money for writing opinions that real estate appraisals are badly made), we got stuck with debts and no savings.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
It possibly says something that both posts are from the UK. Not that we have it particularly worse than any other country, but that we as a culture just feel so ground down by this government that hands out a little benefit with one hand and points at us with the other. There is little to feel but tired and resigned to it rather than ashamed.

There is a massive social stigma about being on benefits here. Partly driven by politics, partly driven by press. It is legal to refuse to rent to people who're recieving that aid. Most housing ads you will see say "No DHS" which is an outdated term to basically say "no low income", as DHS is/was a low income supplement from the council.

There's a now a food-bank donation bin in every major supermarket in the country now. And ironically the town halls of most towns. Some papers even briefly tried to shame those who used the banks. That they include things like sweet yoghurt and cake if it's been gifted. Thankfully that blew up rather spectacularly in the press's faces, and raised funds and awareness for the banks.

Rainy fascism island is a really sad and scary place.

Though food banks are generally a pretty horrible idea when compared to giving people cash. Most of food in them seem to be heavily processed stuff that is both less nutritious and more expensive than fresh food. I'd rather give money to beggars than donate canned food to food bank.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
That day I mentioned was an extreme example, but you do find yourself having to justify nearly everything to yourself and to others. I've had friends who've kindly spotted me lunch ask why I don't give up my book collection from college. I own artwork personally gifted to me by a few industry names, "...surely you could get something for that?"
Like the small existence I do have can be broken down into things other people might buy, and things I deserve to keep. I can't get mad because it comes from a sincere place of trying to help.

The idea of having to pawn off ones items to be considered legitimately poor encourages following the trend of spending money on alcohol, drugs and cigarettes as a form of compensation for enduring reality of living in the world polluted by the other and boredom of work and school.
If you spent money on vice, it's okay, you're legitimately poor! If you buy long-lasting stuff instead, you get punished for it.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
To stay sane... I have to segregate my budget - I have rent and food money, and in five years I've never been late on bills or rent. But I also have hobby money that I make and spend independently of that. If I want a kit, I have to sell and save up from things I already own. Not from my wages or my benefit. It allows me to feel normal.
But it can be hard to explain, when a friend says, "I thought you were poor, why did you buy [x]?" and X is a £15 model or a replacement aquarium valve. Answering to yourself, that's often harder.

Tell them that they are right and from now on you're going to buy drugs like normal people instead of buying hobby items.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
@hotsauce, as a parent, I can tell you flat out that kids grow ridiculously fast. Even buying clothes "too big" for them before school, by the time the school year is out, the younger ones often can barely squeeze into them.

Isn't that the fething truth!

Or they could be like my kids: two and a half years apart but are the same size, meaning there are no more "hand me downs."

So, teens and college students are on drugs the entire time?

 dogma wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
At the end of the day, I think it patently obvious that a $250 budget for feeding a family of 4 for 31 days (and expecting not to run into health issues sooner rather than later) is beyond absurd

Oh, most assuredly. And God help you if one of those people earns a living doing something physically demanding. Malnutrition is a bad thing under the best of circumstances, but add in the load of, say, a construction worker and you're basically just asking for work related injuries.

That's assuming our hypothetical construction worker manages to walk 20 miles to the work sight without breaking his ankle on the side of the road. Just walking along, and SNAP! Too bad cars are a luxury amiright?

 dogma wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
At the end of the day, I think it patently obvious that a $250 budget for feeding a family of 4 for 31 days (and expecting not to run into health issues sooner rather than later) is beyond absurd

Oh, most assuredly. And God help you if one of those people earns a living doing something physically demanding. Malnutrition is a bad thing under the best of circumstances, but add in the load of, say, a construction worker and you're basically just asking for work related injuries.

Construction jobs usually pay pretty well though, and safety regulations out the wazoo.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

This is also why "living wage" falls flat on its face, you cannot define it.

While you can't define a set dollar amount for the whole country, I believe that you can create a sort of "laundry list" of items to include


@hotsauce, as a parent, I can tell you flat out that kids grow ridiculously fast. Even buying clothes "too big" for them before school, by the time the school year is out, the younger ones often can barely squeeze into them.

Oh Agree. I honestly believe that they where not saying you could go without clothe, I be they where thinking things like "You dont need to go clothes shopping anymore, you can just wear the ones you have.

I would suspect as well, that being kids or young adults, they do not realise some of the "surprise" costs that an adult or parent would understand.
Clothes that you already own are not by any means "free". If you want your child to have clean clothes, or God forbid, ironed uniforms, that costs. And so does keeping the house clean with anything much more than bleach. You can't just stop cleaning your clothes, people notice.
Haircuts for those kids so that they can be presentable in school. Supplies like text books and gym clothes... Trips, etc.
I was always peripherally aware that my education was not "free" when near weekly, I was taking an envelope of coins or a cheque into class.

Yeah, god forbid your kids cant go to a Field trip. That is the worst.
I being serious

 Peter Wiggin wrote:
At any rate, the federal poverty level is something like $28,000 (or maybe $32k?) per year for a family of 4 and TRUST ME....that threshold is set way way too low.

The actual, published US Federal poverty level is $24,000 for a family of 4.

Your $28k & $32k numbers are wishful thinking.

http://aspe.hhs.gov/2015-poverty-guidelines

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Peter Wiggin wrote:
At any rate, the federal poverty level is something like $28,000 (or maybe $32k?) per year for a family of 4 and TRUST ME....that threshold is set way way too low.

The actual, published US Federal poverty level is $24,000 for a family of 4.

Your $28k & $32k numbers are wishful thinking.

http://aspe.hhs.gov/2015-poverty-guidelines

The feds don't use a universal system for poverty measurement as each federal agency, and the programs that it is responsible for, have their own rules. Look at the link that I provided earlier and you'll get a better, crosscutting measurement of poverty but even then it's going to be region, state and even county specific.

So when HHS talks about poverty and when ED talk about poverty, they're not speaking the same language; to complicate matters, ED lets districts and states choose their own form of poverty measurement.

My main point is to have some kind of reference when you put a big number down for poverty income.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
So, teens and college students are on drugs the entire time?

Sounds like that's the case in Poland.

reading this thread reminds me why i don't have any kids, and why i live in Mexico...
my monthly total cost of living is between $500 and $600usd, depending on how much i splurged on cashews and pistachios that month...
i live two blocks from the beach in Mazatlan, and live well for $7,000usd a year, but i come home to Hermosa Beach and people are not even blinking at a $10 million dollar price tag for a house on the beach...

the funny thing is, i don't even feel poor...
i'm happy with warmer water, my two block walk to the beach, and a lifestyle of more surfing and less working...

cheers
jah