Official poverty levels in the US can't reasonably be used for international comparisons because other countries have different poverty levels. Even after adjusting for purchasing power parity poor countries have much lower poverty levels and their typical person will be poorer (in the poorest countries noticeably poorer) than someone living at half the US's poverty level.
I certainly wouldn't want to live at that level, but it is better off than the majority of the world's population (even more so than the majority of people who ever lived but that's not really relevant here as the comparison was current international status not over time, for the later type of comparison within a country you would also have to consider that poverty levels within a country also have different definitions over time).
Since even someone officially in extreme poverty in the US has more purchasing power adjusted income (much more if you don't adjust) then people in the poorest areas of the world, it isn't reasonable to claim that poverty in the US ranks "alongside some of the poorest areas in the world". Such a claim isn't just wrong it has no connection with reality. Any study that actually makes such a claim (assuming it directly does and it wasn't distorted headlines about it), would reflect extreme sloppiness at best, if not extreme bias or even outright dishonesty.
It may be taking an official US level of extreme poverty and comparing them with official levels recorded in very poor countries, but to do so without considering that those levels represent very different levels of adjusted and non-adjusted income and general economic well being is sloppy, and to do so after considering that fact, but not mentioning it is dishonest.
Another problem with poverty level measurements in the US is that they do not include all forms of income. It doesn't count refunded tax money (noticeably in the US EITC which is a major source of income for some poor families) and many non-cash government benefits such as SNAP and subsidized housing. The bottom 10 percent in the US (not sure at the moment what percentile the poverty level of income would be for a person, family of four, etc.) does as well or better in terms of purchasing power than the bottom 10 percent in most of the EU and has a home or apartment with more space per person in the household than the average (not the poor the median) person in many European cities (or at least did in 2004 I don't have recent data). Rarely goes hungry... The problem at this level is not grinding poverty, let alone third world type poverty like the UN study claimed ("poverty" ranking "alongside some of the poorest areas of the world" means third world poverty, and not even the better off third world countries), but insecurity. That insecurity is tough but it isn't anything like the claim you quoted.
Now that is for poverty level, for half the poverty level in the US (or the "extreme poverty level") things would be worse, but still far far above "some of the poorest areas of the world").
Saying that is not the same as saying "everything's ok, no problem here". Its just putting the problem in perspective and pointing out that the claim quoted in your initial post is nonsense. |
