I guess it's dependent on where you get your data, what you consider poor and what you consider tiny. You can find a wide range of numbers on the net that vary in relationship to the particular prejudices held by that site but it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 12% which I don't consider tiny.

However the real issue is that it's apparent that the only people considered poor on this site are those that live below the official "poverty" line. That's where we disagree. I believe that understates the problem so dramatically as to be ludicrous. By the 2008 definition of poverty a single person making $10,500 per year or a family of four making $21,300 per year is *not* poor. In my mind people earning so little are indeed desperately poor.

So by the official definition you're correct. Sure it's easy to avoid poverty, all you need to do is to get a minimum wage job. The hard part is living on such a small income. That's what's meant by "working poor".

Certainly there are those that have the means but not the forethought to prepare and for those your ant and grasshopper analogy is appropriate. However explain to me how someone living paycheck to paycheck on a minimum wage job which at next years rate of $7.25 per hour comes out to $14,500 per year (which by the official poverty guideline is sufficient for a family of two to *not* be considered poor) is able to be an ant and save any noticeable amount.

Look, like I said I'm reasonably sure that I will achieve financial independence. I'm also sure that some here have already achieved it and that many that haven't already yet will. But there are also those here that spout these same beliefs now that are essentially living from paycheck to paycheck that will find out how wrong they were the hard way. That is not something I wish on anyone.

Show me that person who worked 50years that way. The sad fact is that the person does not exist.  It is a bad strawman.

I earned $1.62 when I first got a paycheck job.  I make more than that now.

A pretty bold statement, given how many million people there are in the US. You see, you'll need to prove that that isn't the case for every single person. Fratz just needs to find a single one to disprove you! On balance, I'm prepared to believe that there is at least one person out there who has worked as much as they've been able, with an average minimum wage income per year (i.e. including periods of unemployment if they lost their job and had no income for a while while they tried finding another job).

 

What if I get an illness which soaks up all my money? Does that mean medical insurance should be included on there? But doesn't that in turn involve me paying more for something than I'd expect to get out of it, and hence not be that clever? What about if I got the insurance, and thought it covered x scenario, but it didn't, and the same situation arose?

What if instead I get robbed just as I retire, and lose all of my assets. I might be able to get a bit back (e.g. if it's sitting in a bank account and protected by relevant laws), but what about the rest - do I need to have insurance for all of that too?

In fact do I need to make sure I have insurance for every conceivable event, no matter how unlikely, that might result in becoming poor for a prolonged period of time?

 

As for the 'don't have children until at least 21', are you promoting abstinence for under21s, or abortion? Anything else and there's a chance of having a child. Meanwhile even if that is what you're proposing, it still wouldn't make it stupid by default - as with any decision you should consider whether the rewards justify the risks. It's not stupid to make a decision that could result in you becoming chronically poor if there's a very high chance that it wouldn't, and would be of great benefit to you.

 

And what of the people who don't fall under the "most" category, should they just be abandoned, ignored, left to suffer/die?

If you'd bothered to read this and other threads on this topic, you'd know he has said repeatedly, 'No.'

LOL. I made $1.25 an hour in 1976 and like most poor people I lived with my parents. Of course being 14 years old had a lot to do with it at the time. I often worked 15 hour days for a large cabbage grower (child labor laws be damned) I was happy to be earning. In 1984, I was head of a family of four, my yearly income that year $10,666.00. I had cable TV, phone, my car was 3 years old (bought it new) and paid off, and I rented. My wife didn't work. All the liberals on here can cry me a river, their what if's and poor that's make me ill (and it's not covered in my health insurance either). Nobody gave me a damn thing, nor did I ask for anything. I never had to do anything more than my personal best and do an honest days work. You know what it isn't that hard to do. Here's my advice to them, take one of those poor slackers into your home and see how long you can put up with them, while you're feeding and clothing them. Then in a month or two e-mail me from work and tell me what a terrible tragedy that poor misunderstood person is going through as he sits in your favorite chair, scratching his nuts and drinking your beer, watching The View..

WOW!  That was in 72 for me!  I feel rich now!

I'll wait.  But I know I will win. For while there are about 250 million people working in the us (ok what is just a bassian statistic), the truth is that there are only a few million (last government report I saw was about 4-5 million) working at minimum wage.  And his assumption is that the minimum wage will never increase.  So I have time on my side.  Next increase, and I win.

I dont have to prove there are not, now you just have to find that one.  But you probably wont.  I'll concede when you do.  And the average only counts for working years.  After all, a mother who quits the workforce to raise her kids would be below minimum wage, but hardly in your grouping.

The thing is that I'm totally uninterested in disproving anyone because in reality it can't be done. People have their prejudiced view and that is how they will believe no matter what.

There's "data" to support any position you want to hold only a click or two away somewhere on the internet. There's really no point in arguing. I'm not arguing, I'm warning those that are so confident today that tomorrow may be a different story. You could step off the curb and be brain damaged in an instant. Alzheimer's, stroke, heart attack are very common and last I heard having money doesn't provide any immunity.

There's nothing here to win. All that happens here is that little by little you expose part of your personality by which others may judge you. To some you may seem knowledgeable and perhaps that makes you feel important, however others may judge you petty and shallow. I've seen evidence to support both opinions, but the same could be said of all of us.

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Basically what I see is hate for people whose only crime is to be somehow less fortunate. Even if that misfortune is of their own doing, which many here assert and which I deny, why does it warrant such hate? Perhaps we should just kill the poor. Line'em up and mow'em down. We'd probably be doing them a favor.

Disingenuous.  It's not hatred, it's simply recongnition of reality.

No. It's hate. Unabashed and unashamed.

Where?  Hate for oneself?  For the most part, we have all been down there at the bottom, even Brad.  That is the problem with the perception.  The perception is not reality.  The poor for the most part donot stay that way.  They move up.  So where do the new poor come from?  Same place the old poor came from - those starting out.

I see no hate.

Of course you don't.

You can't see the hate that's been expressed throughout this entire forum because that isn't consistent with your own self image.

However I see a lot of hate which is why I've essentially given up on this site. I only respond to this one thread in particular because it's one in which I became engaged and when people make replies that specifically address me, I respond.

Simply calling an opinion hatred doesn't make it so.  It's also intellectually lazy.  If you can show it is hatred, please feel free.

I'm not attributing hate to any one particular person. How could I ever show what is in someone's heart?

However I see the tenor of this forum and I see hate all around. If you don't see it perhaps it's because you don't want to see it. In any case it's just my personal opinion and I make no claim to infallibility.

I have no need to prove anything. I'm merely calling like I see it. If you wish to deny my opinion feel free to do so, however that doesn't change what I see.

As Potter Stewart wrote in the 1964 Supreme Court decision of Jacobellis v. Ohio, "hard core pornography" was difficult to define, but "I know it when I see it". Well I know hate when I see it and that was why after about a week of interacting in this forum I effectively withdrew.

My mistake was to occasionally check back on a few threads in which I had commented to see if there were any replies specifically directed at me and after a hiatus of a week or so there was and so I responded. But I don't need to "prove" the hate, I merely need to avoid it. There is no "proof" sufficient to change the way someone has already decided to look at things. In any case I won’t make the same mistake twice. 

And I respect your right to an opinion, as should we all.  It's a rough & tumble world, moreso in the anonymous blogosphere.  If you express strong opinions, you can expect to have others who disagree express theirs as strongly.  But I don't interpret disagreement as hatred.  Doing so seems rather intolerant to me.