America's poor actually live pretty durn well

[Live and Learn]

At least, according to the Heritage Foundation. This LA Times article does a great job of debunking their BS.

Heritage Foundation: America's poor actually live pretty durn well!
Michael Hiltzik
Los Angeles Times
September 25, 2014

They also deliver some of their statistics with a thick, candy-colored shell. Let's take a look.

Here's the essence of the Heritage case (the bullet points are theirs):

Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, at the beginning of the War on Poverty, only about 12 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

Nearly three-quarters have a car or truck; 31 percent have two or more cars or trucks.

Nearly two-thirds have cable or satellite television.

Two-thirds have at least one DVD player, and a quarter have two or more.

Half have a personal computer; one in seven has two or more computers.

More than half of poor families with children have a video game system such as an Xbox or PlayStation.

Forty-three percent have Internet access.

Forty percent have a wide-screen plasma or LCD TV.

A quarter have a digital video recorder system such as a TIVO.

Ninety-two percent of poor households have a microwave.

Mercifully, Rector and Sheffield dropped their observation, last made in 2011, that the median poor household had a refrigerator, as though it would be a hallmark of real poverty to have to bury perishables in a hole in the yard.

snip>

Among the flaws in this analysis, last pointed out by the Center for American Progress in 2011, is that all these appliances and devices put together don't represent usable family resources. A family could sell its used microwave for maybe $45, for example, and buy three days of food for a family of four. (And then it wouldn't have a microwave to assist in food preparation.)

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-heritage-foundation-americas-poor-20140925-column.html#page=1

[Tommy_Carcetti]

1. They also don't account for the fact some people fall out of the middle class and into poverty.

And yet may still have some left over remnants of their once normal lives.

[Live and Learn]

3. The article also addresses that issue. nt

[nomorenomore08]

8. Not to mention, how do a few little trinkets make up for a complete lack of financial security?

"Look at them, they're not poor! They have a flat-screen!"

[NuclearDem]

2. That's one of the dumbest RW memes floating around out there.

That smug son of a bitch Varney over at Fox pushed it a while ago too.

[Live and Learn]

4. Exactly why this article is so helpful.

It addresses their points and does a great job of refuting them.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

5. Reminds me of this Daily Show segment

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/elvsf4/what-not-to-buy

Regarding the audacity of people on food stamps buying seafood.

[JHB]

42. Heritage has been pushing it for at least 2 decades

It seems like they come out with one of these "studies" every couple of years.

If history is any guide, it's typical Heritage fare: It's designed to get headlines and for conservatives to wave around as something authoritative, but once you dig into it the numbers there's lots of kitchen-sinking, shoehorning, and magic asterixes. But those parts never get headlines.

[Cleita]

6. Perhaps we have better quality garbage for them to sift

through.

[daredtowork]

7. Return of the X-Box Welfare Prince

The problem for the poor isn't household goods - the problem is how to meet recurring payments. Food is usually the easiest to come by. Rent is the number one issue, closely followed by basic phone bill, utilities: heat/gas/electricity/water, transportation (public transportation tickets or gas for your vehicle), and basic needs you need to regularly shell out for like doing your laundry. How to meet these recurrent payments if you don't have a regular income?

One of the most absurd things about all the opining about "bad decisions" made by the poor and all the resources poured ONLY into "how to write a resume" employment programs is they don't grok the bigger picture of these recurrent payments. This is what causes the "toxic stress" and creates the destabilizing conditions that tend to cause mental health issues. This is why the poor are always in crisis mode, putting out fires, running around to appointments, and are actually working like they have 5 jobs even though they don't get any money for their effort, time, and stress. The poor need to deal with these recurring payments.

The XBox someone gave the kid for Christmas is not going to help them with that.

[Louisiana1976]

31. Excellent points.

[TheDebbieDee]

78. You should put your post in a letter, make several copies of it and mail them to the Congress

Critters of your state in Washington DC and your state capitol.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

9. I can take you to native reservations in which outdoor plumbing is widely in use

..in which the unemployment rate is north of 50% -- in some cases north of 75%. In which much of the population lives un used FEMA trailers. You go right on telling me how good these folks have it because they have a wall unit A/C and a DVD player.

[tblue37]

10. Can you believe that someone *alerted* on this OP, claiming it was supporting the

Heritage Foundation's RW bullstuff? People really need to calm down and *read* a post before jumping to alert on it!

BTW, we voted 7-0 to leave the post alone.

[BlueJazz]

22. Oh Brother. The person who alerted IS a fellow/sister DUer or I'd tell them to #^$%&* THINK!

Sometimes I wonder if people Hope for a post that can be alerted upon.

[Live and Learn]

47. Thank you, tblue37.

I am sorry it upset somebody and that I could only post the 4 paragraphs which maybe didn't make it clear enough to some that the article was debunking the Foundations claims.

I thought the article might come in handy when we run into others making such claims. Of course, I know DUers are excellent at debunking the claims themselves but it is nice to know that there is an article in the MSM doing it too.

[tblue37]

64. But *before* the article excerpt you did post your own comment

explaining that the excerpt was from an article *debunking* the Heritage Foundation's BS.

I teach college English, and one thing that always frustrates me is how careless people are about paying attention to what someone else says in speech or writing. Part of the problem is just half-a**ed listening, but part of it is not listening *at all* and being determined to hear only what they want to hear. As a result, people often assume you have said the exact *opposite* of what you have actually said--as happened in this case.

One semester, when trying to encourage a class full of students struggling with writing essays about poetry and claiming that they were not capable of figuring out what poems mean. I said, "This seems hard only because it is new and unfamiliar. You can learn to do it, just as so many students before you have learned to do it. You are not any less intelligent than they were. Your brains are just as good as theirs, just as goood as mine. I see no signs at all that any of you have suffered damage to your perfectly functional brains."

So naturally four of the students in that class complained on their class evaluations at the end of the term that I had called the whole class brain damaged and stupid!

[shenmue]

11. I'm out of work. They can kiss my ass.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. Yep. They love being poor and aren't going to give it up no matter how much the rich envy them.

[Rex]

13. So poor people are supposed to live miserable lives in abject poverty?

And the GOP wonders why people hate their guts.

[Scootaloo]

15. Sackcloth and dung ashes

Do you have children? Chop off one of their legs at the knee and send them out to beg naked in the streets, like the beggars in Kolkata!

Conservatives are sociopaths who define their own worth by how bad-off people around them are.

[lovemydog]

17. A penny for some gruel, please sir.

About a year ago I had dinner with a conservative couple. We don't talk politics much. I mentioned the crushing debt of higher education. The guy mentioned something about people having cell phones. I was like 'I don't understand what you're talking about.' Then the woman said poor people have cell phones.

I haven't had dinner with them since.

I agree Scootalo, they define their own worth by how bad-off people around them are.

Like it pisses them off that someone would have a cell phone. Even though poor people with cell phones usually use it for everything, including trying to find work. And don't have a land line.

Fuck those assholes. I can't relate to them any more. And I stopped enjoying being around them.

[Live and Learn]

49. That one really ticks me off.

What are they supposed to use? Haven't these people noticed that there are no pay phones around anymore?

[Glitterati]

14. My microwave cost me $15.00

I can go to the local Goodwill or charity second hand shop and buy any small appliance I need.

In fact, that's exactly where my used microwave oven came from - for $15.00

I can buy an older model PC for $12.00 at Goodwill, and an XBox or Playstation.

In fact, I have a large bird that chews the key caps off my computer keyboard and I buy replacement keyboards at Goodwill for $2.13.

I bought my 42 inch TV at Goodwill for $17.00. No, it's not flat screen or LCD, but I don't watch enough TV to warrant a television like that. My daughter, on the other hand, bought one from Walmart for $99.00 - I just don't remember the size, tho it's pretty big.

NONE of this makes me NOT POOR.

My refrigerator? I bought it in 2002. The stove? Came with my house. The central AC? Came with the house, but it's broken and I can't afford the $5,000.00 to fix it so I have a $109.00 unit in the window of the most used room.

[SomethingFishy]

20. +1...

Goodwill, Pawnshops, Thrift Stores, yeah I have a TV and an Xbox, and a microwave, all of them together cost less than what a Heritage Foundation member would spend going out to dinner one night. Fuck them.

[muntrv]

16. Toys for Tots charity gives out X-Boxes and Playstations.

[JEB]

18. I've seen decent microwaves sitting at the tail end of an estate sale for $10.

We are awash in this worthless junk.

[logosoco]

19. On the other hand..

the koch and walmart families have way,way more money than they possibly need for their whole families for generations to come.

[Louisiana1976]

34. Absolutely true.

[Live and Learn]

50. And it still isn't enough for them.

They want everything the 99% has too.

[TheKentuckian]

21. Who would have thought that one could be well off for less than $15,000

I thought I'd hop on Walmart.com and see what it would take to be living the life of Riley.

I didn't even bare bones the TV, skipped the little shit and went with a 40 inch RCA for 278 or you can do a 42 inch Vizio for under 300 as well (though it would be a refurb). If you can go 400 then you can go up to 48 inches or get a 42 with surround (which i think has a dvd player) or a soundbar.

DVD players start new at about 20 bucks but we're getting that big TV so better spring for a bluray and go all out, I'll speculate go for name brand new one for 65 since pricing isn't available above a Sony refurb they have for about 55.

For AC, I'm taking either a Haier or a Frigidare 10,000 btu for 259.

I skipped all the computer refurbs for 100 - 200 bucks and selected an HP all in one with a 19 inch screen, 4 gigs of ram, 500gb hard drive for 349.

Microwaves start at about 45 but I'm going bigger and stainless for 65.

Let's do a ps3 with the controller and 3 games for 229 (seriously? I gotta get one) this will also give us the 2nd bluray player, sure like the computer the poor person probably has something a little more legacy but fuck it, no sense pulling up an old ass playstation or even xbox as Heritage does.

Since we are high tech, and a quarter of the poor have a dvr, I took a 500gb Magnavox with a did burner for 268.

So for 1,500 bucks we are decked out in all the comforts at home. From here we need to account for a car or two, I'm granting 5k to the budget and internet which is tricky because all the other stuff may last a decade. Ten years of Internet then? Okay, I'll grant 65 a month making our largest expense by far of 7,800 bringing us to about 14,500.

The funny thing is the stuff people love to harp on, even some on this site is super petty and a very small investment over the life span of the products.

[Dont call me Shirley]

23. What they don't get

Health Insurance, unless a child qualifies for SCHIP, the parent(s) may not.

Dental and/or optical insurance.

Life and Disability insurance.

A savings account.

Sick pay, paid holidays, paid vacations, company health insurance, 401K.

Annual vacation.

Ski trips, trips to our national treasures, amusement parks, concerts, etc....

A decent car that doesn't constantly need repairs.

[Louisiana1976]

35. +1 million

[raccoon]

63. Thank you. nt

[baldguy]

24. They're criticizing consumers for being part of a capitalist consumer economy.

Fucking socialists!!

[jtuck004]

25. Why did they leave off the 24 days of food (then it runs out) and crappy medical care. Still. ?

Liars by omission.

The question should be do people thrive, find opportunity? And in all that, no. It's not nearly enough, and it takes the investment of the resources of a country. The country then gets a return. If not, it begins to populate itself with people who write and believe pap like that the OP is reporting, and the country dies slowly, starved of its spirit.

sad.

[BlueJazz]

26. I tell you one thing, and I KNOW this from personal experience with the rich >>

All those things mentioned in the article ..if you added up their total cost is probably less money than the rich spend on a
"Night out"

You can bet your sweet ass on that.

[Live and Learn]

51. So true. nt

[TBF]

27. The 1% will not be happy until

everyone but them is living in tent cities.

[Warpy]

28. The biggest flaw out of the gate

is that it doesn't distinguish between the multigenerational poor and the new poor who have been hit hardest by the 2008 financial meltdown and Republican refusal to pass any sort of jobs bill.

Add to that the AC unit belongs to the landlord and poor folks can't afford to use it. It sits there, year after year, never being run, something to look forward to if their lives improve but their lives won't improve with the GOP in power.

Have you ever been to a garage sale in a fancy neighborhood? I have and the shock on the faces of women selling designer handbags that cost over a grand new as the sellers realize no one will pay over ten bucks for a used purse are well worth seeing. You can tell they were counting on a hundred bucks or so for each bag to put them over what they needed to pay on the mortgage to keep the roof over their heads.

Oh, and nobody can sell a microwave for $45. That's less than they cost new. Ten bucks, maybe.

[Louisiana1976]

39. I've an AC in my apartment but haven't run it because I want to keep my electric bills down.

[BuelahWitch]

44. Yeah, I thought that resale value rather high

Just more proof these people haven't got a clue as to how the poor really live. But they don't want one, because it wouldn't fit their propaganda model.

[Live and Learn]

52. I thought the same thing about the microwave.

But the gist of the article (that the HF spew out total BS) was correct.

[KamaAina]

29. "Forty percent have a wide-screen plasma or LCD TV."

Most, if not all, new TVs are LCD. I guess people should hold onto their old ones until the CRTs implode.

[Erose999]

88. My mom had an old console Zenith in a beatuiful walnut cabinet. One of the first color TV's you

could get and they saved for a long time to get it. It only had the hookups for an antenna. So in the '80's we had to get a converter box to use co-ax cable in order to get cable TV, VCR, and video games with it. I doubt you could even use such a TV with the new digital stuff. TV has a different aspect ratio now as well so I would guess programs look all janked up on CRT televisions.

[KamaAina]

30. "Ninety-two percent of poor households have a microwave."

A microwave is a luxury? A cheap microwave costs 40 bucks.

[Live and Learn]

53. I am betting a lot more people have microwave that stoves these days

since they are a lot cheaper and portable.

[KamaAina]

60. And don't have to come with the unit

very important in places like SF's Tenderloin, where most poor people live in SRO (single room occupancy) hotels, with no kitchen facilities and shared baths. I costed out what it would take to equip these units with a mini-kitchen: dorm-style fridge, microwave, toaster oven, and double stovetop burner. About 300 bucks per unit.

[SheilaT]

32. And I bet almost all of them have

indoor plumbing! How dare they! No one is poor who has indoor plumbing!

Really. As others have pointed out, many of those things may have been gifts, or purchased at yard sales or a thrift shop.

It IS possible to live decently on very little money if you are quite canny with how you spend. That does not make you any less poor, just smart.

[KamaAina]

33. "Nearly three-quarters have a car or truck"

Try living without one in 90 percent of the United States. Not all poor people live in "inner cities" (read: black or Latino), y'know. I doubt that public transit in Appalachia is very good.

Hell, try living without one even in a decent-sized city, while raising a family. NYC, Chicago and SF, maybe.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

38. I successfully lived without a car in Portland, but I couldn't do it in Minneapolis

and still have a full life. There are just too many "you can't get there from here" places.

[KamaAina]

41. Can't do it in San Jose, either

despite it being America's Tenth-Largest City(TM).

[Louisiana1976]

40. I'm lucky. I live in a city (Peoria, IL) where public transit takes me where I want to go. I have a

Circuit Breaker card so I can ride free.

[justabob]

66. public transport ain't cheap either

I lived without a car for 5 years in Dallas... before we got light rail, all buses. It can be done, but you have to take everything into account.... where the laundry is, where the grocery is, how much a cab will cost if you miss the last bus or have to deal with limited schedule on weekend routes etc. I did pretty well but it was never easy. Back then (90s) it WAS pretty cheap to hop on the bus, but these days? It is cheaper for me to just drive, even if I have to pay to park (meter or valet).

[lpbk2713]

36. A microwave oven is by no means a luxury IMO.

And internet access could be a DSL which is not much better than a dialup.

[Iggo]

37. And they have indoor plumbing, hot and cold running water, electric lights, two pairs of shoes...

...blah, blah, blah....

[meow2u3]

43. This is what the Heritage Foundation doesn't bother to tell you

The TV's poor people have have probably been given to them instead of going in the garbage.

The computers they have are older and don't have high-powered CPUs and RAM.

The cars or trucks owned by poor people are older, have high mileage, and are in need of frequent repairs.


Either that, or the Heritage Foundation is full of shit. I prefer to think the latter.

[Live and Learn]

55. All of your points are correct.

Unfortunately, I hear people spewing the garbage form the Heritage Foundation all the time.

I have actually asked people if it would make their lives any better if the poor had absolutely nothing. I usually get a 'no, but...' back.

[Liberal_in_LA]

45. 92% have microwave - they can be purchased for about $50 & are considered essential

for most kitchen these days

[bhikkhu]

46. And they work pretty darn hard for what they have

Anyone who's worked at poverty-level wages doesn't have to apologize for what they have - they probably worked harder for it than anyone in the middle class or upper class. I know when I was raising a family and just above the poverty line it was a struggle to keep up a decent house for the family, and have some decent things so they didn't feel embarrassed about having so little. It was a lot of work, and a lot of stress, and it was unfair, but the last straw would have been if someone looked at how hard we tried and thought we didn't deserve what we had. Fortunately, we live in a decent community of the semi-impoverished, and most people are in the same boat.

If you see someone who inherited money, do you expect them to feel ashamed that they have a nice car, a house and an iphone? Too many people are backwards about the whole thing...

[Live and Learn]

56. Of course not, people who inherit their money deserve it

[quaker bill]

48. Because of course they aspire to a society

where suffering is greater. I believe they think that America would be greater if our poor had less.

The possessions can all be "rent to own" at fantastically huge finance charges. Having a car or truck is different from owning one.

Rentals often have internet and cable as a package deal.

Try to buy a CRT TV, pretty much all the cheap ones are flat screen anymore. Again with the rent to own.

[Live and Learn]

58. +1 I can't for the life of me understand people's desire to

watch others suffer.

[quaker bill]

67. It is a whole world view

It does not take being unemployed or poor to experience it. The privileged like to think they teach us values by cutting pay and benefits, and then treating us like children. I watched some debate cutting my health insurance benefits, they actually said that we would become "better" consumers, in short that it would improve our "values" if had to pay more each time we get sick. We apparently needed to be taught "better values" more than we need medicine.

Apparently the poor could also learn "better values" by being hungry more often....

It is a sick frame of mind wrapped in patriarchy.

It is also quite Republican.

[awoke_in_2003]

54. I bet some of these ingrates...

even have refrigerators I hate the Heritage Foundation with every fiber in my being.

[Initech]

57. The Heritage Foundation are just mouth pieces for the Koch roaches.

Fuck them.

[devils chaplain]

59. Yes, "stuff" is cheap...

But perversely, the things that are really important -- food, housing, health care, and education -- are still expensive as hell.

[Live and Learn]

61. No kidding. I doubt that if I sold all my stuff (or junk)

that I could come up with enough to pay for one months worth of bills.

[pansypoo53219]

62. of course, the 2% live EXTREMELY well, + can AFFORD to share. how many houses, clothes, cars

do you NEED?

[IVoteDFL]

65. I have most of those things

Except a car and TiVo. I got them because I shop at thrift stores and take advantage of big sales. I also can't pay my rent this month. Can I plug my Xbox into the snow?

[badtoworse]

68. I spent a week in Honduras a few weeks ago travelling around in the interior.

Poverty there looks nothing like poverty here. Poverty here is rich by comparison - sorry, but that is the truth.

[Live and Learn]

70. So you would prefer we wait until we are as poor as the Honduras to complain? nt

[badtoworse]

72. I've spent time in a number of developing countries

Besides Honduras, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Iraq and the Caribbean. When you've seen poverty in places that (IOW, real poverty), you have a different perspective. I think many people take the greatness of our country for granted.

[DLevine]

73. Americans are dying everyday from poverty.

Dead is dead, no matter where you live. Dying in a rich country like ours from lack of housing, food, & medical care is unacceptable. There is real poverty here, you're just not seeing it for some reason.

[badtoworse]

80. See Post 79

[Starry Messenger]

75. 1 in 5 children in the US suffer from hunger.

That number rises depending what state you are in.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/04/21/3429174/feeding-america-hungry-kids/

"More than one in five American kids lived in a “food insecure” household in 2012, according to the newest annual Map the Meal Gap report from anti-hunger charity Feeding America


The food insecurity rate for children nationwide is 21.6 percent. That number rises to almost three in ten kids for a long list of states including New Mexico (29.2 percent), Mississippi (28.7 percent), Arizona (28.2 percent), Nevada (28.1 percent), Georgia (28.1 percent), Arkansas (27.7 percent), Florida (27.6 percent), and Texas (27.4 percent)."

I hope you get a chance to visit those hungry children and tell them how lucky they are to have you to tell them how great they have it.

[badtoworse]

79. I've never said we don't have poverty here. Hunger and homelessness are problems in the US.

I said it's worse in developing countries that I've spent time in. I'll stand by that statement.

The last time I was in Honduras, I inspected a hut that a family of 5 or 6 people had been living in up until about 3 months ago. The hut is located on property that was purchased to facilitate development of a hydroelectric plant. The hut is made of sticks with mud used to seal the walls and size wise, it's about the size of an average living room in this country. It did not have windows or screens just openings in the walls to allow for air flow; this despite the fact that dengue fever, chagas, malaria, and other insect borne diseases are common in Honduras. There was no electricity or running water and the nearest medical facility was about 20 miles away on a dirt road. There was no school for the kids. The family that had occupied that hut lived mainly on fruits and vegetables (it was a farm) and the armadillos and other game they could kill. This situation is not unusual in Honduras - I saw many dwellings that were not much better.

I would never tell a hungry person that they are lucky. At the same time, I doubt that many people living in poverty here would want to exchange their poverty for poverty as it exists in a place like Honduras.

Just out of curiosity, have you ever spent time in a poor country?

[Starry Messenger]

82. Name what country this picture is from:

[brentspeak]

83. Wow, you visited Honduras for your power contracting gig

And now you are expert on poverty in the US.

[haele]

84. Ah, so people aren't poor unless they're corrupt government third world country poor.

Yes, I've spent time in several poor countries. But I expect better in my "first world" United States of America. I expect that my society has a economic "floor" that everyone can land on without falling through, no matter how poor their luck is or "how bad" their choices are.

I also don't expect to have two working families living in lean-tos and tents in the canyon behind my rental home in the middle of one of our major cities and borrowing potable water every day from my back yard spigot, and the back-yard "outdoor bathroom" a neighbor down the street for four years. But yet, in our "Chamber of Commerce" run city with all sorts of "Good, Christian Community Leaders", these families are told they're poor because they aren't working hard enough or need to take their punishment for making "poor life choices". The guy who collected garbage and recycling, worked day-labor, and camped with his wife and four-year-old under the pepper tree behind our chicken-wire back fence for two years was just shy of his Master's degree in Sociology (you want fries with that?) when he got injured and had to take a couple months off, lost his job, lost his student aid and his wife came up pregnant.

I don't expect nor should I tolerate the incidences of families in the US who live like shanty-town families or subsistence farm families in Honduras. And I'm tired of the fellow US citizens who go about bloviating about living in "the greatest country in the world", and yet think it is just to "punish slackers and moochers" with homelessness or establish a permanent underclass of disposable people.

Haele

[AZ Progressive]

69. "Yeah American poor, even if your lives are hard, at least it isn't this bad!"

"Yeah, just remember that at least your life isn't like this nightmare as we continue to loot America and suck America's money dry!!!"

[Live and Learn]

71. I think even those might look pretty good to some of our homeless. nt

[Recursion]

74. Compared to?

Sure, if you take a global view. Someone at the 2nd percentile of US income would be at the 98th percentile of Indian income. Not particularly useful at dealing with nation-level solutions though.

[Vinca]

76. Most of the items cited are easily obtainable used and cheap.

I have to laugh about the air conditioning. Apparently, in the minds of the Heritage Foundation, there are no poor people up north. I'm not poor, but live in New England and haven't owned an air conditioner in 20 years. There's not much of a need. (And I just bought a new DVD player for about $30.)

[Gothmog]

77. The right hate the poor

The Heritage foundation is giving cover to the right wing in their attempt to further cut the safety net

[Orsino]

81. Whistling in the dark.

It can't go on forever, this having it both ways. The ruling class can't do its damnedest to keep us living in fear and keep its media mouthpieces chanting, "it's not so bad." They can't keep killing jobs while perpetuating the myth that the jobless are lazy.

Throughout history the aristos have tied themselves in knots with contradictory lies. The longer it goes on, the nastier the inevitable corrections become.

Vote hard, everyone. Strive for as much peaceful change as you possibly can.

[ProfessorGAC]

85. Heritage Foundation

All i needed to know. Compared to starving hungry ain't so bad. Stupid analysis. par of the course.

[Contrary1]

86. Wow, my son's in-laws were among the 31% who had two cars...

Well, that was before the wife was diagnosed with Parkinson's, the husband was "laid off" at the age of 64, lost their medical insurance, spent all their savings, sold one of the cars to pay for medicine, and eventually had the home they lived in for 30 years foreclosed on.

But hooray! They are now living in a low-income apartment with air conditioning, still have a car, and were able to take their 15 year old TV and computer with them. I'm sure this is their dream come true retirement, after working for over 40 years.

Yep, the poor have got it made.

[Erose999]

87. I don't OWN a microwave, washer and dryer, fridge, stove, heat and a/c, or a dishwasher. Those all

belong to the landlord. Computer, internet access, phone, vehicle are necessities for work for most people.

TIVO and similar machines are included with TV service. You don't "own" those either.

DVD players and video game consoles are cheap as hell (or even given away) if you buy the outdated versions. I see TV's on the "free" section of craigslist all the time.