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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elroy who wrote (275587)	2/20/2006 1:41:34 AM
From: Amy J	Respond to of 1575301

It also includes people with assets exceeding a million, yet are classified as poverty simply because they didn't sell any stock or assets during the year. There are a lot of people like this. A lot of wealthy, elderly people have the ability to live extremely frugally (poverty level) by not spending a dime (and their mortgages are paid off), and by being frugal this is how they've acquired their assets.

To: Elroy who wrote (275587)	2/20/2006 9:09:20 AM
From: combjelly	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1575301

"The key question here is how many of those 37 million are the 3rd and 4th generation of poor people in the family." What do you think, Elroy? Most of those people have no more than a high school education, which is something that generally runs in the family. And education is the big divider now. Not that everyone who didn't go to college are poor, but they tend to be a plant closing or a wage restructuring away from it. Look at Delphi, for example. The typical wage for workers is $25 an hour plus benefits. The CEO thinks that should be $10 an hour with no benefits. Depending on the part of the country, that would take the workers out of the middle class and make them poor. And there likely aren't other jobs around that would give them more than $10 an hour with their skill sets.

To: Elroy who wrote (275587)	2/20/2006 2:57:24 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1575301

37 million poor hidden in the land of plenty The key question here is how many of those 37 million are the 3rd and 4th generation of poor people in the family. If a small percentage, then America is doing its job (allowing those who work hard to rise and those who don't work hard to fall). If it's a very large percentage, then you have a point and the USA resembles the static economies of the non-free world. I don't know.......they don't break out those numbers in the article........but there is growing evidence that poverty has become institutionalized among whites. It had been known to be true for blacks for decades but that was blamed on slavery and discrimination. However, it was believed that whites were able to break the cycle in one or two generations. No longer. In addition, its also been shown that the notion one can be born poor in this country and go on to break into the upper classes is nothing more than an urban myth. Occasionally, it does happen and the media will make a big thing about it, but in truth, the vast majority of the rich were born rich. Its also been shown that with each passing decade, a growing percentage of the nation's wealth is controlled by a declining percentage of the population. In other words, a smaller group of people controls a greater amount of the nation's resources.