The Real Numbers: Half of America in Poverty -- and It's Creeping toward 75%

[hfojvt]

124. still determined to embrace the stupidity

and attack me.

So it goes trying to reason with people.

No "not being in the labor force" does NOT mean you are poor.

How do I know this?

Because in my own life, I do NOT have that option. Either I am in the labor force, looking for work, or I am homeless. People who leave the labor force have the option, apparently, to leave the labor force.

I would love to have that option. Who has that option? People with a working spouse. People who are retired. The town where I live is loaded with retired officers. They retire when they are in their 40s, and their retirement pay is, again, more than my wages. Many of them re-enter the labor force anyway. Not because they are "poor" in their retirement, but because they are bored with their freedom, and greedy. If you are really poor, you don't drop out of the labor force because you are discouraged - because you CAN"T.

If you wanna see poverty, in 1890 the labor force participation rate for men over age 65 was 68.3%. By 1940 it had dropped to 41.8% and by 1990 down to 17.6%.

I am not the one with a skewed perspective here, because I am not the one arguing that households making $60,000 a year are "near poor".